Abhivyakti - Expression of emotions

An open Letter to My teenage sister

2020-07-25T04:17:00.002+05:30

I am not someone much into celebrities but this is in memory of Sushant Singh Rajput, a man I came to know only too late. A man whose last news didn’t affect me more than an eyebrow raise. A man who I didn’t have a crush on or I had googled ever. A man I knew just as a great actor. A man I didn’t know was interested in the universe and space. A man I who had thoughts so smart that he is worth every bit of the attention we didn’t give. A man I didn’t value like many of us while he was around. A man who, we wouldn’t have valued if he was still around. A man who feels like a series of flashback of someone I knew. A man I had a few chances to meet and I lost those chances. A man I got to know only when I tried to know more. Like Shakespeare said - ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves.”

Today, Sushant is not a mere person to me. He is an idea. An embodiment of very strong emotions. A depiction of a regret that teaches every moment. He reminds me of so many people I may have not known and not been nice to or may not even have given a thought to. He reminds me of how, despite all promises to myself, have lost my existence in the mundane. He reminds me of how I rarely take the time to know people anymore. He reminds me of chances not taken. He reminds me that incomplete things are not necessarily not beautiful – rather, incompleteness is a notion of the bored mind. He reminds me that my curious self has stopped asking the kind of questions that make me happy. He reminds me that answers are not the destination, finding more questions is. He reminds me that there may be losses that just feel like a void, irrespective of the relationship and the time that passes by. He reminds me that while we keep aiming to be different for the prime of life, we end up searching for peace by being the same as all. He reminds me that there is so much of us in him and there is so much more of him in us. He reminds me in his own signature style that – “Babu Moshay, zindagi badi honi chahiye, lambi nahi” and he damn well made it big!

He also reminds me of so many times that I may have said something, given an expression on or just moved aside from, destroying someone’s day or worse, someone. There are so many of us, it’s difficult to be nice, especially when it’s nice to be difficult! Not because we are bad people, but because all of us, ourselves are going through so much. It’s just easier to not put effort and let things be. At the expense of sounding like his musings - There may be so much more to people we do not know and there are so many we know we don’t know and so many more we don’t know, we don’t know.

I wanted to start with the former. I have a lovely sister, who I feel I haven’t disappointed yet! She very innocently looks up to me and I feel for whatever reason, this time, things shouldn’t remain unsaid. It’s a miracle that while there are so many of us, the space time continuum has brought the people we know together - that all can’t be just by accident. So, here is my attempt for us to know each other - that’s two less people in the world who didn’t get to know each other.

To her and to the man who lived up to every moment!

An open Letter to My teenage sister

Dear Riti,

I know your birthday is long in the past and it’s high time I produce the gift. While I do not believe in the notion of wisdom coming with age, I feel there is a little bit of learning that comes with age. I would love for you to explore the world and see it with your own eyes and learn, I wished to pass on few things that stayed with me and helped me sail through the years till now. I would have mailed this to you personally, but trust me, there are many out there, exactly like us in so many other corners of the world, who need to hear our conversation. Much of it may not make sense right now but I hope in the due course it does :)

1. Be Kind!

Riti, your perfection as a kid has always amazed me! Not that I believe in perfection of a person; everyone is complete in their own way. But even if I go by the societal way of “judgement”, I would still vouch for you being one of the best-behaved kids I have known. But you know what strikes me the most? That you are kind. And darling, that’s one of the rarest things to be today.

Being a bully is easy, making people feel bad about themselves is easy and you would see so many even at your age being mean. That’s the easy stuff. Trying to hold on your fort is the courageous thing to do. Not letting such words get to your heart is difficult but a task worth it. And once you conquer that stage, try standing up to the bullies for someone who needs your support. I promise you, it will be very uplifting. Be grateful and thank often. Being kind will matter even more when you grow up. Life’s experiences make people bitter and by not being kind, they spread the kind of negativity that hits us all back. Don’t lose the dash of magic you possess - In a world of darkness, be the candle that enlightens lives.

2. Work Hard

They say there is no substitute to hard work and I couldn’t agree more. It hurts sometimes, may be not so much when you are still in school or college, but more so when you get into the professional world. It may not pay off as proportionately as it does in schools where you know if you read more chapters, you answer more questions as the question paper is generally fair. It wouldn’t ask you something you ought not to know. It will have fair representation of all chapters.

Life may not turn out to be so fair in later years. There will be problems that you didn’t create or deserve, there will be messy situations, pretty much out of syllabus and there will be days that will be so difficult that you will feel like crumbling under the pressure of it. I will not give you any false hopes - Any amount of hard work wouldn’t help avoid the chaos, but it will give you wherewithal to deal with it.

3. Don’t be afraid to rest or ask for help

I would probably not tell this to kids your age with the fear that hearing this may make them complacent, but I am sure you are mature enough to understand when to exercise this one. You have heard me saying things like “Life is tough darling but so are you” – True but don’t burden yourself with the thought that you always have to be. Being strong for too long can also make you weak. It’s okay to say that you give up, it’s okay to call your Mom or a friend at 3 in the night and say you can’t take it anymore. And it’s okay to sit through a whole week because things don’t feel like improving. Whenever it feels too hard, find someone you will be able to talk to and I will be the happiest if that person is me but don’t ever let yourself feel alone. Talk it out.

Baby, it will feel like one, but life is not a race. All that matters that we keep going on and not ‘really’ give up. Ensure that your pace is to your comfort, not your friends or family or society. Trust me it’s never gonna be too late. There will always be time for things that you find worth it.

4. Do something for the society

Well this is something I am yet working on and I am sure I have a long way to go. Since I do not have much that I know about it, let me take a different take on this one. Let me introduce you to Prof. Banikanta Mishra, Prof. D V Ramana & Prof. Indranil Chakraborty from my college and Prof. Subhash Prasad from my school days. They form a big part of the person I am today. I would love to share some of the things I have heard from them and may be some recordings of their class.

You know why I remember them so fondly, Riti? It’s not because of their expertise in their subjects. In fact, three of them teach finance/Maths and you very well know that I haven’t come even close to be enchanted by the magic of numbers. It’s because of the kind of people they are. They have been embodiment of a person I wish to someday become. It’s their thoughts about mankind, learning that they stressed on, prioritizing it over any subject knowledge. I may not remember about some factor theorem but I do remember that Subhash Sir would stress on honesty and hard work beyond any exams. I may not remember how to make a perfect balance sheet but I do remember that there were small business owners who were benefitting from the knowledge Ramana Sir had imparted to them. I may not remember how to determine the valuation of a company but I certainly do remember that Bani Sir would stand up for things he believed in and encourage us to do the same. I may not remember the equations between countries and their development quotient, but I remember that Prof. Indranil, in his last lecture would sing with us “Aa chal ke tujhe, main le k chaloon ek aise gagan ke tale…” and fill us with positivity for life.

These professors were teaching since decades, seeing people do the same mistakes, teaching things they know most of us won’t remember for more than a year, but taking time out in their classes to impart few things that we will remember for life. These are the small things that end up being big in life. I am not talking about charity or some big project on climate change or changing the whole course of life to help the society. It’s the small acts of doing something for someone other than ourselves while doing what we are doing for ourselves. There is an old song that goes by the name “Jeena isi ka naam hai”. Hear it when you find time, quite meaningful! Also, there is an ambitious project I wish to take up since long – Making one person smile genuinely every day. Let’s do it together?

5. Don’t be afraid of anything – AT ALL!

There is just one rule to go by - Do what your heart approves of. The voice within our heads, our intuition, is a dependable source for decision making in difficult times. Remember that “The fears we don’t face become our limits”. As long as you keep running from something, it has power over you. So, delve into these challenges, engage in them and go ahead and make mistakes.

A good girl knows her limits but a great girl knows she has none. You have read ‘The Christmas Carol’ and you know there will be ghosts of past and future but dig your heels in and do what you feels right in the present. There may be things you do, that feel like a mistake and unless it’s something that hurt someone, do not regret it. And even if it was horrible, if it hurt someone, apologize sincerely, but do not beat yourself about it because we are all mere human - bound to make mistakes and learn. If we were supposed to be flawless, won’t we all come with manuals? We all do what seems like the best thing to do in a given situation, we innately don’t mean harm. So, never regret something that made you smile once. It was right thence.

There is something called butterfly effect – Read about it when you find time. I find it very captivating. It simply means that any action, anyone takes anywhere has a hand in impacting the future of the universe. Very popularly quoted, “A butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas”. Meaning that even a small change like a wing flap can lead to some changes in pressure of some system which may tend to shift something in some other system and result into a tornado whose the exact time of formation, the exact path taken was influenced by minor perturbations such as the flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly several weeks earlier.

Now if that’s true, there is so much that goes on in this world varying from spilling of tea over a sofa to major wars and pandemics. Being in control is an illusion – There is so much that’s not in our control, so much that we can’t do much about and can be mere spectators to. And then there is a possibility of parallel worlds in a fourth dimension of time. We will watch a movie called ‘Interstellar’ someday together. It opened my eyes to so many possibilities.

If this is not the world where we will take our chances, where will we? We have got one life and its utilization lies with us. Being afraid to try something out may be the last thing we want to do. So, go all out and if it means being weird, be one. After all, it’s the weird ones that change the world.

6. If there is a scope to learn something, just go for it!

This is something I learnt from Sonu Bhaiya. In the chaos of life, not everything will make sense but in the long run, everything falls in place. It fits like a giant jigsaw puzzle. There is an Oscar winning movie called ‘The Slumdog Millionaire’ which had a profound impact on me. It’s a story of a boy in Mumbai slums who becomes millionaire on a TV show. The central theme is a beautiful one – Everything you learn helps you some place. Everything! I have experienced it in my life like many others. Did you know that Steve Jobs dropped out of his regular degree to do a course in calligraphy? It may not have made much sense to a man who wanted to build a technical career. But read what he had to say about it when he became ‘the’ technical person - “When we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them."

After all, I learnt how to play Jenga from you and I might have won a game on a day I really needed a win! 😊

7. Read

Now this is one I can’t stress enough! You know about the history of writing? Perhaps it evolved during record keeping for trade in Mesopotamia around 3400 BC. There is so much that has happened in the world of literature since. From explaining the big bang to expressing feelings, from reading weather to dedications of poetry, from making satellites to the tragedies of Rome, from overcoming diseases to historic battles, mankind has recorded everything. This is the treasure trove and include all you can in your lifetime. My favorite writer is Mitch Albom and my favorite book is “Tuesdays with Morrie”. It is a wonderful depiction of a teacher student relationship. You will find books that transport you to a different world, books that change your life and books so beautiful that you cry when you finish them. Words are very powerful - Many times, things we say outlive us. There is so much to read and there are no wrong answers whether you want to read Ruskin Bond or Stephen Hawkins. Just keep reading!

Introducing you to a dialogue from a movie I loved, called Dead Poets Society:

8. Don’t be scared to love, but exercise caution – we are all fragile!

I know this might not be relevant now, but one day and very soon it will be. There will be too much pressure for choosing the perfect partner and you will have no clue how to know who is that perfect someone. Don’t let that pressure scare you away from love. When it comes to love, we all falter. And like all things in life, here too, we make mistakes. While correcting mistakes may be easier in other walks of life where heart is not involved much, this one hurts a tad bit more. And that’s why all the tension around it and the need for caution. I am not telling you to exercise caution by not taking a chance. One of my favorite author says - " You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you have some say in who hurts you and you should like your choices". All I have learnt from my experiences, is sometimes, the best of people may be not “right” for you and you only get to know that after being with these people. So sure, take your chances but only with people who cross certain threshold in your parameters. Say for example, you are a kind person and you try being with a person who is not very kind while kindness is something you value highly. It may end up hurting a lot. Be careful of who really deserves a chance and I know even after all that caution, it may not work out at times and it may end up being the worst heart break of all times, but that’s how you know it was a relationship worth having! You may feel bad about a relationship not working out but you must not feel bad about the person you invested so much time and efforts on. The person definitely shouldn’t be someone who crushes your feelings or intentionally hurts you, I think I may be quite proud of my choices of chances because they all turn out to be people I respect to date despite the history. On the days of heart break, the world will feel like crumbling, you will clutch in pain and it will feel like you can’t love or trust for the rest of life. You will sleep crying or may be not even sleep for a few nights but it’s important to keep waking up the next days. The pain will feel like constant but I promise you, it goes away so slowly that you don’t notice. And trust me, both me and Lipi Di can assure you that there will be one day when you wake up and it doesn’t hurt unbearably. You would have passed through the stages of shock, disbelief, denial, anger for the other person, anger for yourself and regret of wasting your time.

You must be thinking why take so much risk if the path is only hurtful – Well it’s because in the process you rediscover yourself. You learn what you really want in a partner rather than what you thought you wanted and more importantly, you figure out what you do not want in him/her. More than the partner, the process helps you discover yourself and that’s what love is supposed to do – Make you a better person. And in this process of rediscovery, someday you end up in front of that imperfect person who makes everything perfect. All the confusions will slide away and you will stop doubting anything. And this doesn’t come like the movies, obviously not with those violins but also not like the happy picture of first love they show. Do not confuse it with the ‘butterfly in stomach’ feeling, that feeling of blush and excitement will come every time you decide to take a chance. This one will be more permanent in nature and it comes gradually as you get to understand the person in front and the jigsaw of your life starts to fill up. For when it comes to that phase, I hope to be around and be of help. I am just a call away, always 😊

9. Do not judge
Riti, you are living in times that are way more open and less suffocating than our times. There will be people you meet on your way who have different preferences, dressing styles, different hair, different languages, color, shape, sizes and culture. Judging comes naturally to us because appearances and visual input are the first to reach our brain out of the five sensory inputs. Refrain from that and try to stop your mind from forming an opinion based on how people seem. I have found my judgement wrong most of the times and am friends with people I had judged to be ‘not my type’. Give a fair chance to all humans and let them give you data points on how to treat them best.

10. Have a tribe you trust!

Stay close to people who feel like sunshine on a winter morning! Be with people who make you happy. Relatives you are stuck with, but friends you can choose! Make most of it.

You know what? It feels good to be someone’s inspiration and I will be honest with you that you make me feel very special and proud for the way you idolize me and share with me. I remember the poems you have written for me, I remember the calls when you have felt lonely and I certainly remember how you value time with me. In many ways, I idolize you back because you make me value myself. As you grow older, you get to know that there turn out really few people who make you feel good about yourself. I have kept a close circle of friends, people I know will literally cross seas if I need them by my side, people who will pick up my calls at any doggedly hour, people who will listen to me cry and not ask for explanations, people who would be there for me, no matter what. And you need that kind of positivity in your life. Let the toxic people filter themselves out of your life. Let them go even if it hurts. Be the kind of person who uplifts others and be with people who uplift you. As they say, ‘Real queens fix each other’s crowns’. Keep and nurture your tribe when you form one.

While I have given quite a lot of ‘gyaan’ here, your experiences may be quite different from mine. You may find happiness in other forms of art, you may like other kind of people, you may find fun in parties, you may have your own ways of finding peace. But if there is one advise that I would give you above all - it’s to never stop believing in miracles. They do happen so frequently, in front of us. Give yourself a chance to be enchanted by the magic that life is!

With lots of love,

Your Di 😊

#ShaShaSisters

A Progress in Progress!

2020-01-06T05:58:00.000+05:30

My favorite piece of my writing remains “The Tantalizing Temporaries”. It has been read around 22,000 times and had some awe-inspiring discussions from readers of my blog and other sites where it has been featured among top 50 pieces. In many ways, it has stopped me from writing again, making me anxious if I could ever write that well again. Perhaps it was the beauty of the mind space I was in or the topic itself so relatable to the audience. May be someday when deep emotions strike as strong, I may write another as loved piece, but till then, these makeshifts will do, hopefully.

And only on lonely, dark, silent and cold nights do I ever feel like writing. I have tried being on dutiful writing regime earlier but somehow the system fails. It only comes when it comes. Months pass by postponing, but somehow, when it does, time and date don’t matter. Not that I don’t find nights inspiring, but I guess, we writers, have a way of romanticizing anything lonely, dark, silent and cold. All these things feel like our freedom, giving us a chance to be whatever we feel like being – no judgement.

30s is a time like that in life – the happy place and a great life stage to live in. How much ever it may seem so, but I don’t mean it in a consoling way! You have filtered out the energy draining people, you don’t think twice about blocking away the kind of energy you wouldn’t want near you, you are out of each one of those relationships that once seemed “the one”, you care less and only when necessary, you have the security of a livelihood and comfort of knowing that your parents no more worry on the basic stuff about you and you are in a position to worry about them and help in certain ways, you feel independent in your own skin and you get more confident about handling life. Well, perhaps, only till the time your parents ask for your opinion on the dinner table, about anything – That certainly stumps you. When did you get so much older that you earned a place in a meaningful discussion, since when your opinion is important enough to make into a decision. Man, that’s scary! It has too much responsibility blanketed within. But yeah, 30s still is great.

While it’s great, it also leads to too many friends going the family way, grocery shopping becoming the only outing, lazing around becoming your favorite “activity” and eventually to a lot of free time. All of this dedicated to either watching a screen or overthinking every damn thing in past, future and present and romanticizing them, to the extent of listening to the clock and feeling sorry about absolutely nothing. Or maybe the passing seconds? Life has happened so much so till this stage that comfort becomes uncomfortable and tranquility becomes unbelievable. That may not just be because of how chaotic and challenging the 20s are while you are figuring out literally everything – from career to love to what you want from life but also because of how fast the brain gets tired of not having new challenges suddenly. The education system, at least for us, millennials has been strangely engaging – not really in the positive terms. So much was expected and so much was already decided for us that one never had the time to really reflect and think what we ever wanted. And to be honest, the Baby Boomers are not to be blamed – they only did what they thought was best for the millennials - Survival.

The GenY, caught between the survival instincts of GenX and risk-taking ability of GenZ will always remain in the balancing act. While banking through the digital tools, we are comfortable knowing that there is some “Mishra Ji” who we know by name and face at the physical bank. While we saw the yellow filament lights turn to white lights, we are seeing the yellow becoming premium again. While we claim to be thick-skinned now, those ‘Tiny Tales’ still strike a chord. While the new content on Netflix and Amazon may keep us glued, we will keep going back to little bit of “Sarabhai” and “Friends” and may be even “Dekh Bhai Dekh” or “Malgudi Days”. While being on our own may be the in-thing, booking those costly tickets to home on watching that “Ghar Wali Diwali” commercial is trendier – “Wherever life may take you, love brings you back!” While we may fight our moms every single day, they are ones we will run back to her in split of a second. While we may be ‘pretty-sure’ of something, we will always be unsure within. While we will buy too many books, we may not be able to find time for them. While we may go on those envied solo trips, we will be travelling for the social status too. While we may be advocating living in the moment, we are the same people who are still trading reality for a role. While we reach out to our greatest achievements, some of our greatest fears lie bare. While we may all feel settled in life, we are quite unsettled in our heads.

So much uncertainty still awaits in life, so much eventualities and so much still to figure out. 30s may seem like maturity but it’s a long way from there, a milestone at best. On a lighter note, I have a friend in 30s who genuinely barks at dogs when drunk!

I remember reading somewhere “It’s growth that generates happiness, not achievements”. And then another of my most favorite sayings of all times, “There are many things that can make us happy, nothing that can keep us happy”. In that sense, we are all unfinished businesses.

May we remain WIP till we RIP. Amen!

ये रोज़ की दौड़ जिसे हम ज़िन्दगी कहते हैं

2018-07-14T18:09:00.000+05:30

While we have all proudly taken the road less taken, have we essentially taken a detour from the road that leads to the place we call home?

THE UNSETTLING ‘SETTLING-DOWN’!

2017-07-30T20:04:00.000+05:30

THE UNSETTLING ‘SETTLING-DOWN’!

There are phases in life we have been excited about, there are stages we crib about, there are changes we don’t like, there are situations we hate, there is music that is bitter, there are goodbyes that hurt, there is weather we complain about, there are people we dislike. And then comes a phase where it stops mattering, a strange lull that neither shatters us nor builds us. This stage is where we don’t care. Perhaps, a stage where life gets a little too predictable, a little too well known to us, a little too less risky and suddenly the idea of ‘settling down’ is no more comfortable!

It’s strange, we work our whole life towards reaching a stage where we know all that’s future and being prepared for it. Those ambitions, those higher degrees, a little higher salary, a better ‘disposable income’ (Anyway you are gonna ‘dispose’ it!), numerous insurance policies, that house, those cars and then what? Whole of the student life with the feeling of “Just this exam and then life is ‘settled’”. And then the exams actually get over! Whole of life with the feeling, if I earned that much, I would shop every weekend and fill up my wardrobe. And then the wardrobe actually is filled and then you don’t really feel like shopping. Whole of the life with a feeling that one would end up alone. And then one gets someone for life and gets worried if the romance would be as it was before during more ‘unpredictable’ times. Whole of the life worrying if I did right in not saying yes and hurting so much. And then you realize that that ‘no’ was actually good for that someone. Whole of life worrying if you ever will have that city skyline view from your window while reading a novel and sipping a hot cup of coffee. And then that day arrives and you thought you will have only a good thing to say about it on the social media with that lovely sunset picture, while on the inside you kept thinking was that overrated? Did those websites which serve daily dosage of motivational and life-stirring-promise quotes on irresistible templates were just selling emotions? Whole of life complaining that there is so much left on our shoulders, so much that needs to get done. And then suddenly, all that is done. And instead of feeling lighter, you end up searching for the load!

Mid-life crisis hits hard I know, but this one is not that! This is way different. This is not where you feel you have accomplished so less, this is where you feel- All boxes checked, and so what?! This one is not imposed, this is chosen. We made it for ourselves and then we get saturated! We created the palace with the glass walls and then we are surprised that it suffocates us? Strange are the ways of the human head!

So much that happens over time! When did we ever love what was there in front of us? We had never romanticized the classes and exams when they happened and now evenings go by remembering the beautiful time it was and how much we can give to get it back for one moment. Cribbing about that first ‘stupid’ boss was fun only till we had friends, not co-workers. It’s no more fun when you start pitying your boss. It’s no more fun when there aren’t any professors you can enact and laugh off. It’s no more fun when you thank them over emails. It’s no more fun when the most sarcastic and funniest of your friends have reduced to “How have you been? – It’s going on!” It’s scary when it’s ‘going-on’. It’s damn scary when you know that you are caught in a cycle of life that is going to be more or less be as it is planned for a mass of people. Breaking free is something I have always talked about but this time, I am clueless of what is holding me back. What do I break free from?

I guess in life, it’s like crossing the Rubicon. Once you ‘settle down’ there is so less that you want to change and yet hope to. The key perhaps is to not let the calmness become numbness. This age is dangerous - Too much of maturity is expected out of us. It’s important to ensure that this maturity doesn’t kill the child within. It’s important to climb up the roof and get drenched in the first rain, it’s important to still make those paper boats, it’s important to scream out, it’s important to know that “I am fine” is not the only answer to “Are you okay?”, it’s important to know that a next professional ambition is not going to fulfill you, it’s important to sing – however your voice sounds to others, it’s important to jump around on way back from office and not look at the on-lookers, I know you have to buy grocery, but it's important to make friends while you do that, it’s important to go sit with complete strangers if eating alone haunts you, it’s important to stammer in a child’s voice, it's important to wave your hands out from the car and look like a complete moron, it’s important once in a while to be that dumb person people blurt out laughing at, it’s important to not listen when someone talks you into “What will people say?”, it’s important to crack those stupid childhood time jokes and laugh on them yourself if no one else does. It's important to call those long lost idiot friends and talk to them till they are their normal self, it's important to spread the craziness because you don't wanna dance alone, find people who are ready to get embarrassed with you. It’s important to know that feeling of embarrassment is the reason enough to do it again and again and only when you lose the embarrassment, you grow further. It’s important to understand how complete you could be when you let the child and the adult in you walk together. It’s important to know that you are never too old.

Maturity is not in growing up only once. Life is too short to live childhood only once. That is only if you wish to live and not just keep it “going –on”. Even while I write this, I am not sure if the invisible chains are invincible too. But that’s only the adult in me. The child is already out on the streets looking at the beautiful pixie dust that the raindrops make as they touch the rusty old yellow street lights. The child is in love with life as it has always been. It’s time to shut-up the idiot that the adult is! It’s time to make some crazy stories that you could be proud of telling your grandchildren while your children are not listening! J

Taking that NEXT Plunge!

2016-11-27T07:27:00.000+05:30

Taking that NEXT Plunge!

I still remember the red sharpener my Mom got me when I entered my first school. I never shared it with anyone, lest they might lose it. I have still held on to the only winking doll my Dad got me when I was 6. It was easy to hold on to them. So easy to keep them. I have always been a person very cautious of not losing my belongings. Always checking on them. And then I grew up. The list of things that could be held on to kept growing smaller. As we start preferring people over things, we start preferring loving over holding on, belonging over possessing, trying over fear of failure and sadly sometimes even getting hurt over never having someone by our side. It’s a miscalculated gamble, for each one of us. Over years, the choice between letting someone into our lives and being by ourselves, between taking those independent solo trips versus couple resorts, between the bike rallies and long drives, between the books and someone to read beside becomes a decision, a rather difficult one. More so because people are so different from things.

The extreme static nature of things is what we start with, all of us. There is a strange comfort about things that don’t change. The attic at my grandma’s place hasn’t changed since I was born. These are things which are taken for granted, as if they will stay, if not forever, for our lifetime. Human nature loves ‘granted’ things. My coffee mug has stayed the same since I got out of home. Coffee certainly does taste better in it.

People on the other hand, fall on the other extremity. They change. Always. The dynamism is what pulls us towards each other. But it’s the same dynamism that leaves us scared too.

When a child moves away from his/her toys, is loved by all relatives, exchanging laps, being loved and caressed. And then there is that one relative who molests him/her. Life changes that moment for the child and forever. It takes decades before they can classify a touch in the casual or romantic category.

When the teenage girl believes in the star-struck love story and finds her new found first boyfriend making her just into an alternative, her concept of platonic relationships sure gets distorted

When the guy waits for the girl since childhood and despite all promises, she marries another one for the annual CTC (!), his heart rejects the notion of love he knew since years

When the student who gathered only friends during school suddenly find himself in the middle of the dirty politics at the workplace, his mistrust on people grows. He starts questioning his judgement and others’ existence

When the young couple commits suicide over their love marriage not accepted due to caste differences, the society readjusts its balance towards negativity

When every relationship feels like ‘it’s the one’ in the beginning and ends up nowhere close to the finishing line one imagines of, hearts get broken

Experiences with people turn people into cold, insecure and even numb beings. Not at all undermining the great experiences that make us into who we are, the ones that really make us are the ones that break us (The Zeigarnik Effect sure does exist!). The insecurity of passing on the power of controlling our happiness sure is scary. It only gets scarier over the years. It’s easy to get over the first partner who knew practically nothing about you, but how about the n^th one you have shared your fears with, the one who knows your mood from the way you nudge your head, the one who can forecast your actions? Rather difficult. Opening up to someone is letting someone into your little secrets you have never shared with anyone. It takes courage, a lot of it. Faith takes time to grow and no time to subside into trenches deeper than the ones known to mankind.

Ever next relationship’s impact is inversely proportional to the number and intensity of such experiences. When the ‘love of one’s life’ couldn’t keep up the trust we put in them or couldn’t stand by us, every other partner we ever have in life, pays for them. When the so called friend betrays, every next friend puts in that much extra effort to enter our circle. And then there comes a time when we lose it, we lose the human touch we were born with. The cold numb creature that stares from the mirror doesn’t even seem familiar. Our new partners crying doesn’t matter in the least because the previous ones kept crying while they were cheating on us. Our workplace doesn’t give us any friends because we stop trusting genuine smiles. Our lives no longer lets people in. Unfortunately, it happens once to almost all of us by the time we hit youth.

Learning from experiences is perhaps not the best thing engrained in the human mind. If only we could start afresh with every new person in life, if only we could drop the baggage with the relationships, if only we could choose the last relationships first, if only we could be enchanted with every new thing the world showed us with shiny eyes and open hearts, if only unlearning our heads was as easy as learning.

Difficult certainly, but perhaps not undoable. The easier thing to do is not trust anyone and not get hurt, but the bigger thing to do is being able to take and give another chance, and yet another and yet another! That doesn’t mean staying foolish and ignoring lessons from the past. Cautious might be fine, shy never. Being able to see different people differently must be the key, being able to not compare people like things, being able to say “He/She might really be different, being able to look at the risk-return frontier and say “I am not afraid of the risk of getting hurt at the chance of being loved, being able to say, “He/She might actually be the one”, being able to know that knowing reasons is not necessary, just knowing that things happened for a reason can be enough. This might look like over-romanticizing the real world as it is. But to be honest do we have an option? Can we forever not trust any other person because we were muddled with once? For that matter, can we forever stop tasting any new food because one particular sushi tasted pathetic? Can we stop accessorizing our homes just because we can be burgled? Can we stop loving because we can get hurt?

No one knows for sure. It mostly is a matter of time. Few experiences take a lifetime, few a second after you decide to let them go, few stay on, cling on. The only thing to remember is testing new waters with baggage will only drown us. Floating happens only when you let the flow through you, when you let the instability stabilize you, when you let the hurt heal you, make you stronger, not numb, when you let your heart do what it was designed to do, when you let someone complete the painting someone else deserted, when you take the plunge – without the baggage. Go back to the child in you who looked for good experience in everything new. Go take that chance….let the rains drench you to the soul and let no one stop you, specially, yourself! Who knows the change you chose to not take might be your only chance? Strangely, it gets simpler as it gets complex!!

“Life is made up of a collection of moments that are not ours to keep. The pain we encounter throughout our days spent on this earth comes from the illusion that some moments can be held onto. Clinging to people and experiences that were never ours in the first place is what causes us to miss out on the beauty of the miracle that is the now. All of this is yours, yet none of it is. How could it be? Look around you. Everything is fleeting. To love and let go, love and let go, love and let go...it's the single most important thing we can learn in this lifetime.”
― Rachel Brathen

The Tantalizing ‘Temporaries’

2016-04-17T14:50:00.000+05:30

The Tantalizing ‘Temporaries’!

“Forever” and “Happily Ever After” are the way we have always seen a perfect life as. I feel it has got nothing and everything to do with those diabetically sweet fairy tales from childhood. The prince and the princess who spent a lifetime together, the couple that got married, the true-love kiss that brought the princess to life, the grandparents who grew old together, the brothers who got lost and met again to spend an eternity happily, this is all that we heard and read about.

What about the ones who didn’t? What about few people who just crossed your way? What about the lovers who couldn’t make it? What about them who assumed that all love went down the drain because it couldn’t end in a marriage? What about the relationships that ended in misunderstandings and what about those that never took off due to society? What about those who had too much love but a matching ego? What about awesome friendships that got lost in distance? What about people who could never forgive a loved one? What about a little love that remained for the ex-es even after marrying someone else? What about brothers who fought over property when they grew older but somewhere the childhood love kept haunting them? How about those who couldn't have their ‘forevers’?

My father often quotes his favorite poet, an age old one, where he talks about life being like a water bubble, life itself being the most temporary dimension and then we talk about ‘forevers’ and ‘eternities’. Although I myself am a believer of a few constants, a few things one’s life revolves around, but are they the only things in life? May be the centre remains the same all through, but what about the varying orbits? What about the distance we cover during a lifetime while the centres stay in their place, always there for you?

Perhaps the ‘temporaries’ do claim a space in our heads and heart, but how often do we mouth them? How often do we gather courage to tell our spouses that we still remember our first love? How often do we have the courage to look at our own journals from a decade back? How many of us can bring ourselves to listen to the music that we once loved and then hated for such a long time? How often does the silence not deafen us with sounds from the past? How many of us can think of our past without flinching? How many times have we avoided memories, good and bad alike? Good because they are not there any more and bad because we don’t want to revisit times when we fooled ourselves. How many of us will walk past the memory lane and accept the physical and mental scars, acknowledge their presence and then return to our forevers (which sadly again are temporaries)?

Do we really ever forget the butterflies in stomach when our first crush looked back at us? When our best friend (among the tens of ‘besties’ we had every year!) held our hands while we were literally thrown out of the classroom? When the first date (and nothing else) happened!!? When although someone might have broken our hearts, they were the ones who made it pump in the first place? How many of us can acknowledge that there were people, who came into our lives for a really short while, but changed it forever? That we are who we are, because they existed?

Life does come a full circle.

At times, people forget their anniversary, take each other for granted and hurt each other beyond measure while the relationship is going. They then forgive each other on an ‘anniversary’ , years later, after there technically cannot be an anniversary!

People promise an engagement and then move away the same year. They bump into the same person with their ‘another’ love of lifetime and look into each other’s’ eyes and know that they have been forgiven.

Couples cheat on each other, cry, fight and separate. Then one day, one of them becomes a parent with someone completely different. And yet that day, they look their kid and can’t think of christening them by any name other than what they decided in their very first relationship!

One day a mother who can’t explain her son’s explicit love for all the things she used to hate in her first boyfriend, calls him to say, “Now I understand you. Thank you and sorry”

One day a widower calls his girlfriend from college. When she picks up, he only says “Sorry…wrong number”. She forgives him for not being brave enough to marry her, but dies in peace of knowing that he wanted it as much as her.

Friends fighting over each other’s time get together after a decade and it doesn’t even take a moment to realize nothing ever changed. They just had to look for a little longer.

Brothers fight a lifetime for a property that doesn’t even matter and then beg for forgiveness from each other. A pat from the elder soothes the younger, just like old times in the playground.

Temporaries never really leave our side. We carry their burdens our whole life. Sometimes without realizing, sometimes in full consciousness. Time undoubtedly is lost in between all the commotion, but when we see back, perhaps all will be worth it. Because the first girlfriend/boyfriend cheated, you chose the next one more carefully. Because the first relation couldn’t work, you put more into the next one. Because the first ever relationship you thought will last a lifetime, the third one actually did! Because it couldn’t work with the wrong person, you found the right one. Perhaps there was nothing wrong ever with the ‘firsts’ and yet they didn’t work, you stopped dreaming and then you actually found your ‘Neverland’. Because you kept fighting for something worthless, you came across something that made you worthwhile! The challenge only is to accept the existence of temporaries and give ourselves time to absorb its importance.

One day we would realize that destinations are truly overrated. It’s the journey that matters. All the hands that we held in the process matter. All the smiles that we gathered, matters. All the moments that we thought were permanent and which then became temporary matter. Scars that make us more beautiful and memories that make us stronger matter.

You value it because they don’t exist any more. If there was no end to life, no uncertainty around every day, would Gods still be jealous of the human life form? Would we really rate permanents over temporaries? It’s commas vs full stops and when you realize every full stop is just a comma, extended a little longer. After all, our day is a mayfly’s ‘forever’!

We are a little of every hand that ever caressed our head, a little of every voice that soothed our loneliness, a little of every smile that adorned our day, a little of every hand that reached out for us in melancholy, a little of every moment that made our lives worth living, a little of every person who touched our hearts.....They say, nothing is permanent, and yet "forever" is what we want, "permanent" is what we find enriching....Not at all challenging the importance of things that we hold constant since whenever we have them, but in the ever changing world, should we sometimes reflect on the temporary and embrace them with all the love they deserve? Perhaps it's time......

The best part is, like the constants in your life, once you had a temporary, no one can take it back from you. Temporaries also stay with you, FOREVER! J

The magic of intangibles!

2015-12-21T03:21:00.001+05:30

The magic of intangibles!^**

……….. and the Happiness therein!

“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.” ~Albert Einstein

All my writings talked of the magic of smaller things, the misnomer for the biggest of things, the intangibles. As I delve deeper into the more inhumane side of the world, I feel I keep finding more of emotions. A little of business in fact taught me a lot more of emotions than 'the better side' ever could. This writing comes from a world that duly underestimates the power of the smaller things…Let’s get down to business!

While we were running behind the ‘dot com’ boom or the ‘recession’ or ‘big data’ for that matter, did we stop striving for something far more important to our existence? While we were chasing towards success and expanding business, did we forget to live? Did we forget that businesses are run by humans, humans who have needs?

Today, a generation which is more educated, earns more and lives longer compared to any previous generation is one of the most depressed generation in world history. Perhaps, the most ignored fact in businesses today, is the human content of business. Chip Conley, a noted businessman and a renowned speaker emphasized on the fact that some of the biggest companies around the globe already know that customer loyalty, goodwill and brand-value are worth much more than sales, margins and material assets. Around 80% of assets on Apple’s balance sheet is comprised of intangibles. In fact Harley-Davidson, Whole Foods Markets, Southwest Airlines and Google are all intangible-driven companies. We do know that the intangibles are worth a lot more than tangibles, but in the absence of ways to quantify the intangibles in a definite way, we end up having to ignore them.

It was in early 1970s when nations started realizing the value of intangibles. In 1968, during a very memorable speech, Robert Kennedy stated that “GDP measures everything other than what makes life worthwhile”. It was a game changing event in the political and behavioral scenario. GDP must have been an important metric during industrial revolution when production was synonymous to development. However, with an 80% decline in poverty, was produce of a country, the only way to quantify it?

In 1972, Bhutan’s fourth dragon King succeeded his father at the age of 17. At a time when Bhutan was known to be one of the weakest nations financially, he was asked about the GDP of Bhutan by a journalist. The king in his answer changed the way people looked at Bhutan and the way we judge nations based on only what they ‘produce’, not what they ‘have’. He proposed ‘Gross National Happiness’ as an all-encompassing metric. He not only mentioned it, but also set up a procedure of quantifying the same through 4 pillars, 9 KPIs and 72 different metrics. Today more than 70 countries use GNH as a metric. UN recently identified happiness as one of the key ingredients of development.

Prof. Daniel Gilbert, psychology, Harvard University has done commendable work on importance and analysis of personal happiness. He has studied multiple cases and reached at a few results very intrinsic to human behavior. He very interestingly says that people are bad at forecasting the reasons for their happiness. One might feel that they will become happy if they get a promotion, a job or a partner they wish for, but even after they get everything they want, do they remain happy forever? After a period of time people learn to deal with ultimate grief and similarly dissolve extreme happiness. The fact is there are many things that can ‘make’ us happy, but there exists nothing that can ‘keep’ us happy. Who would believe that having kids actually takes one’s average happiness levels way below?! I clearly remember asking for a doll to my dad when I was a child and believing it while I said – “This is the only thing I will ever ask you for. I will always be happy if you buy me this doll”. My dad just smiled and got me the doll; knowing that I will never end asking him for more toys and a lot more in life. We keep striving for a goal to become happy and the moment we reach that, we shift the ‘goal’ itself and hence end up making ourselves unhappy for eternity! It can be said for the mankind in general that the frequency of happiness is much more important than the intensity of happiness. Also, generally a situation of no alternative surprisingly keeps people happier than people who have alternatives. The good part is one can’t remain unhappy for life and humans have a way of finding a way around situations.

“Wisdom does not come with age. Maybe it is born in the cradle but this too is conjecture, I only know that for the most part I have followed instinct rather than intelligence, and this has resulted in a modicum of happiness.” ~Ruskin Bond

In Prof.’s words, “The secret of happiness is that it’s not a secret; it’s like weight loss – You know the right things to do, you just don’t do it.” Happiness can be generated only by knowing what counts for you. Chip Conley devised a simple equation to explain the mathematics of happiness; which is more like gratitude/gratification; what you have vs. what you want to have. It's up to us to increase the numerator or denominator! :)

As our worlds grow bigger, we start to realize smaller the things are, the more they matter. Days that just go by waiting for our hours to get over, moments that just pass in a need to be noticed and people who just cross right before our eyes in hope of being acknowledged, all the small things that keep looking for our attention till the time we lose time and start looking for them when they are lost. A silent day, a lukewarm coffee, a half read novel and peace at heart is the way a perfect life is! Sunlight meshing from a canopy of leaves, droplets of rain on your face and a smell of the mountains, what else can a life wish for?

**Originally penned for internal usage at Mu Sigma Inc. – Please take permission before copying or reproducing

LOVE YOURSELF!

2015-06-29T11:11:00.001+05:30

As I skim through all I have written, each piece relates to an event in past and I realize that I have been only as mature as the hardships I have faced. Perhaps everything I ever wrote seemed the most important emotion at that time and at different times, having faith, forgiving, loving, letting go, changing and living to the fullest seemed to be the most thing….however, through all this, we forget something important, more important than everything else and that’s – Loving ourselves.

*Going by the trend, this piece should contain wisdom from all events of my life and should be at all-encompassing level of maturity with all emotions intact! :D

Despite the popular belief that everyone loves themselves, very few of us actually do. Being selfish should not be confused with loving oneself. We all have been involved in acts of selfishness; Adam couldn’t hold himself from having taste of the apple and that’s what led to the human race, so guess being selfish is being humane! Not wanting to lose on my atheist audience, my intention is to drive attention to being there for oneself. Knowing all the weaknesses inside us, knowing that we are not as good as we are perceived, knowing that we look pathetic without make-up, knowing that we thought ill of someone, knowing that we harmed someone, knowing that we have a devil living inside us, knowing et all, even though no one else knows, and still wanting to embrace ourselves without having to act is the act of loving oneself.

There have been times in everyone’ life when we have felt lonely, betrayed, unfit for a gathering, not capable of living, grief beyond bearable limits, unable to let go and worse, unforgiving of ourselves. We tend to hold ourselves for everything that went wrong. Someone broke our trust, and it was our fault to trust too much. Someone didn’t give us due attention, and it was us who let them take us for granted. Someone didn’t love us back, and we were not good/attractive enough. Someone hurt us beyond measure, and it was our mistake to let our hearts open. Someone thought of our competitiveness to be cut-throat and moved away, and it was us who couldn’t be good enough friends. Our stories all cross each others’ and more often than not, end sooner than expected majorly because constants come with small frequency for anyone and everyone. Through all relations we build, all actions we take, if we end up blaming ourselves, we end up disliking ourselves and sooner or later, stop loving ourselves. There is no denying that we have made mistakes and we act to like ourselves despite them, but it’s important to know that once we stop loving ourselves, we don’t only become incapable of seeing good in ourselves, but also in everyone and everything else. Also, while we start loving ‘self’, we ensure that we will never be lonely, however alone we are left, that however brutal the world turns, we can still hug ourselves when night falls – however long and however dark, that whoever betrays us in however unexpected ways, it’s not our fault, that whoever crushed all that we believed in, we still have ourselves to fall onto, that love might have disappointed us once, but we can give it another chance because someone right will come to love the person we really are and because we love ourselves, that being happy doesn’t require a particular thing, person or place, it’s within us, that every emotion hits us the way we perceive ourselves – we cry if an important person betrays us, we fight if that person is not-so-important and we don’t care if the person holds no importance.

One of the most gifted actresses of our times, Kalki Koechin once observed something really deep:

“Love is giving without expecting in return. It sounds like the ultimate act of self sacrifice right? But the trouble with giving, and I mean happily and limitlessly giving without expecting in return, is that one has to be self sufficient, and full of love for oneself. So, in a way, I believe love is selfish, because only a person, who loves themselves fully, can give fully without expecting, without needing, without dependency. I’m not there yet, but I fight to be myself everyday in a world where we are constantly pressurized to be someone else, and that daily fight is my pursuit for love.”

How fabulous a thought it is! How can you possibly love someone who you will never know well enough if you don’t love yourself whom you know, who will never leave your side, with whom you have spent all the days and will spend the rest of your life? If someone else’s attention, respect, love, faith and togetherness are an essential to your happiness, rest assured, it will wane away much sooner than expected. I would never deny the importance of people and loving them because, there should be some axis for our revolutions; these constants are a huge part of who we are, but never completely us. As we grow, we know however painful, it’s crucial to get hurt, rebuild and give everything else a second chance….even ourselves. Know that whatever you did in whichever situation was the best you think or could fathom. Know that one day it will all make sense, one day when the huge pieces of jigsaw fall in place and you smile back at life. After everything that I and my ‘self’ has been through, I love myself…do you?

I never asked to grow up!

2015-04-06T10:37:00.000+05:30

As easy as life was....it continues to get tougher. With every birthday that I celebrate days start looking so much difficult to survive. Where did so many responsibilities get loaded? Where did the point of always making sense come from? Since when am I expected to choose? Since when I am expected to make decisions? Since when managing my whole finance get started? Since when I started being bad to someone? Since when hurting someone became necessary for setting things 'right'? I am fine growing old but I hate growing up!

Last time I checked one should get happy looking at children...how come my first reaction, looking at a child is burst out crying? Looking at the way everything is always perfect in their world, someone always to look out for, someone always ready to clear any magnitude of filth they make around them, someone to always say that "Okay no next time"

How come I get just one chance? Just one, to decide and be right? How come I am expected to set everything right? How come everything is expected on time? Why is there no diary of complaints, where everyone could write and only my mom got to decide which ones I was to blame for and which ones are not my fault? Some way that could explain people I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.... I am tired of being a grown up...

I loved the carelessness of the child I was. How I could engineer a wind mill with a leaf and a twig and could keep running beyond forever to keep it whirling...how I could bring the house to a pin drop silence because my doll needed some sleep....how the only competition was the number of bubbles someone could make out of a safety pin...how a white stone that could spark, was strategically rescued by my brother from 'goons' of the colony...how I could keep posing and my dad could be a photographer whole day long!.....how I could be rebellious and all I could break was a toy, never a heart...how I could decide anything and never fear a loss I could bring to fortune 500 company....how I could almost ask of anything without depriving anyone else of something...how I was capable of never being bad...how there were always same set of dolls getting married....how there never was any doubt, no second thought needed for practically everything in life...how all I had to choose was the frock I wanted to wear for the day.....how easy was an understatement....

I can really give off anything to bring back those days....I can...perhaps even if it means growing up in exactly same way...I don't regret anything that has happened as I sincerely believe in a reason for all that happens...but sincerely a time travel will be the only thing I would ask of Aladdin's lamp. Having never to make a difficult decision, having never to hurt anyone, having to know that all you can do to people is show wonderfully miraculous moments is being a child....and I am losing that very swiftly....May the child within us live forever :)

"Give me some sunshine, give me some rain

Give me another time, I wanna grow up once again!"

IS BAD A NECESSARY EVIL?

2015-02-28T02:10:00.003+05:30

IS BAD A NECESSARY EVIL?

Let me post it before I change my decision of scraping it off…and you all better read it before I decide taking it off from here….because I am possibly the angriest I can be!

I write this in complete frustration of the storm I am holding inside. I am angry, very angry. Not on someone or something. I am generally angry. Mostly on myself. I am frustrated to the limits of heavy breathing and hyperventilation, even scratching my head (!!) and it’s no one’s but my fault. I tend to be over-caring, sometimes being nice to people and I go out of my way to accomplish it. Sometimes trying hard to not show my negative reactions on people. (Those who know me just little will laugh their hearts out on this because I am someone who shows reactions on every single thing. I make sure I am heard before I accept something that I don’t believe; although I have worked on my listening capabilities!) I am talking about people I am really really close to. I gathered over time that people are obviously more important than arguments and tend to accept what the other person says, either to avoid hurting them by careless words or may be just avoid any further arguments and lose any further energy. I am not someone who believes in just accepting something without reasons, though. I believe in talking my heart out, (that explains the loquaciousness), in arriving to a conclusion through a healthy discussion. I like ends closed. My inner self demands a proper closure. I hence end up fighting up with myself while the vicious arguments and counter-arguments keep going on in my head. And I end up asking myself, “Does niceness need to be carried to a level where it starts rusting your insides?”

Sometimes when I ponder over the reason I want to be nice to people, I fear the honest response that my mind throws back – “Aren’t you being nice to people to be perceived as a nice person, Aren’t you just continuing on the camouflage just because you don’t want to break the ‘good girl’ image, Aren’t you hiding your weaknesses by acting all around?” There is a ‘congenial behavior’ and then there is pathetic self-destructing attempt at being benign. This reminds me of an episode in the popular TV series, ‘Friends’ where one of the character claims “There is no selfless good deed”. How true!! Childhood is the best; your tantrums are okay because you are a kid. Once you grow up, you are expected to hold everything inside, even if it’s breaking you down. It’s not anyone’s mistake, it’s how the society made its way. Still, somewhere, it gets on everyone’s nerves. All of us are angry on each other and not all the anger can always be shown and be done with it. Some of it stays, becomes bigger with time and explodes out at the most inappropriate time.

When it’s building up, every single thing irritates….People have all the time in the world to know “He dropped an egg into his coffee….because he is a genius, She crossed the road…because she is genius, he threw his child, but when I saw why…I knew he was a genius” OMG!!! Einstein just got an inferiority complex!! Whatsapp keeps pinging all day long…there must be numerous groups we rather put on mute than exiting from there, because we are ‘NICE’. Honking vehicles, pollution, smoking zones, smirks, running nose, low energy everything becomes so unbearable at these times. Sometimes when the person in front talks of the most irrational things, we rather listen to them and try ignoring it because, OMG, who will handle guilt of being ‘not nice/good’, it’s obviously rather easy to make guilty than be guilty!

When I thought of a personal superman for everyone, I forgot to talk of a ‘Joker ’ needed for everyone too. Although your superman will be there for all times, in thick and thin, but can you take a chance to hurt someone like him/her? Would you not be dead cautious about the way you treat them because they are so valuable? There should be someone you can hate completely and without guilt. Someone so bad that all your behaviors, however bad, are still justified, despite you being a grown-up. Someone who everyone detests, someone made for hatred. It’s strange that in a world full of terrorism and supposedly ‘bad people’, it’s not just difficult, but impossible to find someone who is disliked by EVERYONE. So let’s move to someone who is hated by a majority. Let’s just consider Ravana, most of us now know that he was a staunch Pundit, still he is bad for most of us because he raged a war against our favorite Rama. But have we ever thought on the fact that Rama wouldn’t have existed for us, had Ravana not been there? That there would have been no Krishna without a Kansa, no batman without a joker and no Spiderman without his ever changing enemies? Isn’t bad a necessary evil then? Isn’t bad the breeding ground for good? Isn’t bad the actual good? How about the Hulk?

Lucky are the ones who have someone they can whole-heartedly detest, because the bad relations actually help us save the good ones! J When I started writing this, I was back from a really long tiring day, ready to hit anyone who messes with me, had just invested a pail of ‘angry-frustrated-meaningless’ tears into my ever-reliable pillow and screamed out my frustration in a closed room loud. I didn’t feel as good as I feel after penning this down. Now that the words have flown (as must be very clear in the progress of the piece through paragraphs :P), I feel myself, I found my closure! J

Random thoughts :)

2015-02-20T00:01:00.002+05:30

So less can be explained about what one wants and why...what can not be even tried for knowing that is the right thing...what has be taken even though it might be the worst thing...Perhaps as much as life is about dreams and desires...it's also about 'don't care' and compromises...explanation is the last thing that should be tried for what the heart says....and yet that's always the right thing to do...or is there something like a 'right' or a 'wrong'? Is it all not just a game of perspectives? Does it even matter?

Some of the biggest mistakes of past look just like tiny things one can laugh at, future always seems to scare...present never lived into...what's that always goes missing..even at the right place, right time with right people and right situations? Perhaps the biggest and most vulnerable of treasures with us is 'ourselves'. Losing that is easy...and fatal. Inability to love oneself is the worst of things to happen to anyone...perhaps even with biggest of mistakes, the ability to forgive ourselves was hence imbibed in the human psychology...it's a survival instinct! smile emoticon

Fears never leave the head, pains never cease...going through the pain is necessary...but coming out of it is furthermore necessary...Decisions which are either 'right' or 'wrong' are easy to take...difficult are decisions that are 'right' both the ways...or worse...'wrong' both the ways...What then? Nothing...sit back and enjoy the ride? Yeah...pretty much! Let the moments take away your breath while you wait for the next miracle to happen....because that is almost sure to come....

TIME IS THE ONLY TRUTH…

2015-01-08T20:54:00.000+05:30

TIME IS THE ONLY TRUTH…

I am taking the liberty of using a public platform to share something very personal. To answer the ‘why’ – I believe it might be personal, but it is commonplace too. We all have lost someone close. We all know the sorrow of a loss, some of us closely, some not so closely. We all think there is lots of time left. We all find pride in the non-essential ways of the world. We all are different and yet the same.

For instances in the piece you don’t agree to, please feel free to write to me…for instances that make any sense, please feel free to write it to yourself…to your heart…because you need it while the time is running out…Hating the life you might have gotten is easy, loving difficult…Love life while you can!

*Also, I don't promise this piece to be a real soul-lifting experience, so please don't read it while you are low...all I can promise is a soul-stirring experience...self-reflection more often than not, helps!

The first time, ‘time’ and the passage of it really scared me was when they said – “There is nothing that can be done. He only has up to 14 months”. I perhaps can’t register till today that he is no more and that’s majorly why even my close friends don’t know about it. I had pulled myself back into the artificial world I had created for myself, into work, into roaming aimlessly and just sitting with a book without flipping a page. He feels around…after all people still know me by the name he gave me, people still love my writings that he kept improving through strong criticism. It just doesn’t feel like I will never be able to talk to him ever again...ever discuss the trifle issues I had, never be able to write for him, never be able to argue endlessly, never be able to hate him for being as adamant as me, never be able to love him for standing by me the few crucial times he did, never be able to get irritated every time he playfully licked my nose, never be able to convince him endlessly that I didn’t have a boyfriend, never be able to have someone believe in my abilities despite my consecutive failures, never be able to see that level of modernity in any other relative, never be able to be so close to the other generation, never be able to be scared to touch those souvenirs he brought from exotic places he travelled to, never be able to easily assume that my anger will be understood because he was the angriest anyone could get, never be able to enjoy the fact that although we disagreed so much, there was so much I had inherited from him, never be able to wear those ear-rings without clinching about the fact that the hands that gave it to me don’t exist anymore, they were burnt in belief that they will meet the five elements…I experienced the loss of my grandparents…but nothing took so long to hit and nothing hit so hard.

He did nothing wrong, never drank, never smoked, never did anything out of the ‘bad boys’ book’, didn’t even choose sports as his career despite being awesome at it because his parents didn’t want him to….still there was nothing they could do for him…the guy who was my “handsome hunk”, the sexiest old man that could be, a man who had a most subtle sense of fashion, who loved his blue shirt beyond measure, who kept his uniform speckles white, who was gonna be captain next, who loved his hair way more than anything; had a swollen face, a shrunken body ready to get paralyzed any second, a voice that was good enough to only mumble, a head that had lost most of ‘the’ hair due to life-sucking-so-called-medicines chemotherapeutic drugs and a heart that could not sustain that fatal heart attack – AND THERE WAS NOTHING THEY COULD DO TO SAVE HIM. If there is anything I hate the most, it’s cancer. It just doesn't make sense for a disease to exist without a cure, a problem without a solution, it’s just not balanced in this world, and it’s not fair. There must be something we can do. I had my grandfather eaten away by it and I have a very brave friend who fights it every day. It is probably the worst thing to happen to someone and the amount of courage it takes to fight it is on a scale that any worldly way cannot measure it. The eventual helplessness that you feel while you see something alive getting deteriorated as time shows its colors is beyond any explanation by mere words. Every time I talked to him, I very well knew it could be the last time; last time he talked to me, was when he couldn't really speak, he used to be so funny…he could make people laugh, hysterically, he loved talking, for hours…and then he couldn't…I kept running away from talking to him, I didn't wish him his birthday that was just 5 days before he decided to rest in peace, I was running away from seeing him in such a different light, I was running away from the scary truth…but, it happened nevertheless.

Perhaps that was not the worst part; time scared me even more after this happened. I couldn't stand the air of that house knowing that he breathed one of his last there. It started suffocating me the moment I saw his kids who are too little to even know what has fallen upon them, I couldn't stand to see his wife without vermillion and bangles that never left her in ten years of marriage, his mother to have seen his child dead in front of her own eyes. It just was so abnormal to behave so normally, as if nothing had happened. His clothes were being washed to be kept in the wardrobe forever. His watch was lying in a corner of the wash-room knowing that there will be no time in future it will be worn on the same wrist, his slippers were lying at the same shoe rack. His room has his signs everywhere. The family was searching for a picture of his to be used for the final ceremonies. I had agreed to find one, then too without believing that it was really happening. Going through numerous pictures, he was coming live from, was not a good idea, I realized. Going through emails was even worse. He was more than an uncle to me. A brain tumor was not enough to kill the man he was. I hate the ‘was’ in the last sentence. I just don’t want to be in face of the truth. I simply have not been able to gather courage to go back to the place ever since.

I remember one of my favourite author's statement, "The thing with pain is that it demands to be felt"....how true!

What positively scares humans are things they believe are out of their control; what’s ironic is that there is nothing, however small, in their control, because the datum that decides everything, ‘time’ is beyond their control. They said this is what makes life so eventful; something that even Gods envy. They said unpredictability of life was something that makes life beautiful. I believed them…but somehow the highs and lows have exhausted me. Somehow I don’t think I am ready for times to ever change again. I am fine with what I have right now…somehow I feel I hadn’t seen enough of life when I wrote the last piece about change being inevitable and yet beautiful. It’s just inevitable…I wish it was beautiful too. I have many happy memories with him, but they will take time to resurface…His loss has again sent me to the dungeons that are invisible to everyone else. I am tired again, very tired of worrying about the passing time, of what the future holds. I am again scared of time, of losing someone important, of things not working out the way I want them to, of what my career will be like with the kind of indecisive nature I carry, of which stranger I will end up marrying, of never experiencing love the way I believe it to be, of seeing my mom’s hairs starting to grey suddenly, of seeing my dad’s knee hurting every time he sits for long, of leaving them alone at a time they need me the most, scared of not talking to them enough, of sleeping way too much during the day…scared of losing the whole lifetime running behind a job that I keep claiming to be challenging and behind getting a hike, a salary that is proportional to my efforts!...all this in fear of saving enough, of having enough so that if something unexpected happened, it will be alright. To be honest, it’s never gonna be alright and it’s never gonna be enough. Still we all run…in the hope that one day things will be alright, someday it will be enough…and then comes the day life gets tired of us…it becomes too late to realize how important living in the present was. We all say it…we all know it and yet we spend precious moments in front of a living person on gadgets, don’t take our parents’ calls, keep thinking of calling friends for moths, never take a leap of faith, never really value smiles-on ourselves or others, never soothe ourselves with nature, never take time out for ourselves or those who matter, never take a moment never stop, never just be….always believe that there is a lot of time for everything…perhaps these are really not controllable actions...unlike the common belief…and then the time runs out without a single alarm….life is rendered meaningless…everyone dies with the same regrets and yet no one learns…no one keeps a cue of the fact that in the end things don't matter, people do- because they don't return once they leave....the cycle of life continues exactly how the devil desires!

2014-08-18T03:17:00.002+05:30

Soul - Mates

........the single way love could explain itself to me!

“The whole of man’s life on the face of Earth can be summed up by that search for his Soul Mate. He may pretend to be running after wisdom, money, or power, but none of that matters. Whatever he achieves will be incomplete if he fails to find his Soul Mate.”

-BRIDA, PAULO COELHO*

Disclaimer: Unlike any other piece of my writing, this is a little polarized, a little too personal and a little too confident and hence I might be a little defensive about it. No generalization/stereotyping are intended. You might not agree with many things, and that’s fine, because we are all different and that’s the beauty of the universe. Obviously, we all need a little more maturity to understand people whose shoes we have not walked within.

I write this in complete light of the fact that I can be misinterpreted at multiple junctures…but that doesn’t really matter this time...perhaps because I am writing more for myself :)

With more than two decades of a single life, three Valentine’s days’ struggle and 24 pages of secondary research (and none of them used here!) makes me even less of an authority to write this piece…but love has enchanted me since forever….what can be such a force that gives people strength to die and kill, what kind of emotion is strong enough to last a lifetime, what can be so amazing that it can make you lose track of time, what can blind you so much that you never before knew what was missing? Hasn’t love touched each one of us, in some magnitude, in some form, in some way? Doesn’t that give us enough authority to talk about it….For me love has never been just the romance; it’s bigger for me, much bigger. I believe in soul-mates.

Perhaps the whole concept of soul-mates is too far-fetched, too conventional for us to believe in it anymore, too clichéd to even travel to the modern world and old enough to have ended with fables…anyone who talks about them would be considered eccentric. However…..

6 years back I met someone who changed the way I knew life. 2 years back, I found a book that changed the way I knew soul-mates and….him.

So again, I believe in soul-mates.

“When people think of reincarnation, they always come up against a very difficult question: if, in the beginning, there were so few people on the face of Earth, and now there are so many, where did all those new souls come from?”

“The answer is simple,” said Wicca, after pausing to savor the young woman’s eager silence. “In certain reincarnations, we divide into two. Our souls divide as do crystals and stars, cells and plants.

“Our soul divides in two, and those new souls are in turn transformed into two and so, within a few generations, we are scattered over a large part of Earth.”

“And does only one of those parts know who it is?” asked Brida.

“The truth is that if the Anima mundi were merely to keep dividing, it would keep growing, but it would also become gradually weaker. That is why, as well as dividing into two, we also find ourselves. And that process of finding ourselves is called Love. That’s how the Book of Genesis explains it: the soul of Adam was split in two, and Eve was born out of him. In each life, we feel a mysterious obligation to find at least one of those Soul Mates.”

“But how will I know who my Soul Mate is?”

“By taking risks,” she said to Brida. “By risking failure, disappointment, disillusion, but never ceasing in your search for Love. As long as you keep looking, you will triumph in the end.”

6 years back, I was an arrogant girl who hated the world for making it so hard for her. I was someone who had fought an attempt of child abuse by one of the teachers I had respected the most once. Life had been unjust, but that had never concerned me…It was just too hard upon me and I became too hard on it. The child in me had grown up so fast that I barely remember running after butterflies. I have never liked chocolates and soft toys. I never had a Barbie. I had grown to be a strong girl, but perhaps the strength had broken down the humane fragility in me. I didn’t believe in any worldly happiness by the time I hit senior school. I have struggled to accept the fact that I believed that any attempt at looking beautiful would make people mistake me for a “bad” girl. I carried myself shabbily and gracelessly to ensure that no one falls for me. I made sure that my cocoon is too hard, opaque and dark for people to find any positive light inside me. I had seen so many of my friends getting into hopeless relationships and losing themselves that love was not just scary, but also meaningless notion for me.

It was so easy for the guys who could never be misinterpreted. It was so much easier for beautiful girls who had guys lined up to help them with anything, for reasons unknown. I had worked so hard for achieving everything in life and convincing people that a below-average looking girl deserved all of that. I had already hypothesized that male chauvinism is to be fought at every step and beauty meant no brains. A satellite into space also could not raise my self-confidence. All of this and yet it took someone real strong to show that, I was not fighting the world, but just myself! Still, at every point, my need for acceptance was curbing my ability to be different.

“I want to know how to find my Soul Mate.” asked Brida.

“He’s right here with you,” thought the Magus, but again he said nothing.

“A point of light,” he said. “A point of light above the left shoulder of your Soul Mate”

1st day into graduation and I had seen a strange light in this person’s eyes. I ignored because all reasoning within a moment told me nothing like this is realistic. 2 years into graduation and I had earned myself good grades, and NOTHING ELSE! I didn’t have any memories to rejoice, too few friends and no reason to smile and then life showed me another trough, a big one. I saw pieces of me shattered around and was not even left with the courage to gather them. It felt nice to see someone with the same “light in the eyes” pick up all those pieces without an ounce of sympathy and in fact with confidence that these would make a stronger girl than before.

It felt nice to let go, to backtrack a little and find my childhood back. It felt nice to travel to unchartered territories for once without any fear…it’s wonderful how happier you become once you have lost so much that there is no more fear of losing anything. It felt nice to be touched without even a bit of lust, nice to see a smile that warmed my heart inside, however blue the situation might look like. It felt nice to have such a strong fall back option that I could let myself loose because now trust was not something I could bank upon, all I could, was get hurt again and that didn’t matter because there is absolutely nothing left after the absolute happens.

It felt nice to just watch the stars in pitch of the night, feel the breeze in my air and let all worries blow off. It felt nice to walk on dewy grass and derive energy listen to music that didn’t even exist. It was nice to again believe someone, even after knowing that it was so easy to break me, to know that trust could rise from ashes. It was heartening to know that I was the center of world for someone. Someone was there who would not think twice before prioritizing anything that concerns me. Someone who would leave off the world for one spark in my eyes, for one more smile on my face, someone to whom my happiness was the purpose….someone who just brought tears to my eyes….someone who was, is and will remain my MIRACLE! J

For me, magic didn’t exist till the point I was shown that rains happen for us to dance our heart out, not to hide and cower….that painful songs only add to the pain, that sometimes it’s okay to overcome the pain and shut the door dance alone to a completely meaningless loud song….that it was okay to bunk classes for once because the snacks at canteen were hot only in the second period!...that having roadside food was okay even if I got sick and missed a few classes…because in the end, I won’t remember that one class that I attended, but that one class that I missed…that sitting outside and letting the wind caress me would soothe me more than sitting in library…that looking at the world and smiling to strangers was all okay…that loving people without expectations was fine because love healed one from inside…that a broken trust is not my mistake…it’s a mistake on the part of the person breaking it…. that one becomes better with forgiveness….

Perhaps that was the end of the sad old me…but surely a beginning of happiness…that was when I started to enjoy moments rather than worrying for years, when I started being a little less attacking on people I didn’t trust, when I became more confident of myself, when I started loving myself….that’s when I started living! J

This man transformed me…..and I felt the world transformed. They accepted me more for who I was because I was comfortable in my skin now! This man looked at me once and I knew he could see through my soul…he caressed my head and I knew things were going to be fine soon….he walked with me and I knew no journey would be difficult…he obviously loved me whole-heartedly and it took me way too long to see that love existed in so many forms and I could find him in every form of it…I could feel myself becoming a new him...capable of life, capable of love…he became everyone and everyone became him…he was omnipresent, he became my world…he loved me….but he never held me…truest of love is the kind that actually sets you free….

Love didn’t require that kind of renunciation. True love allowed each person to follow their own path, knowing that they would never lose touch with their Soul Mate.

Perhaps I was never able to name the relation because not ‘one’ relation was enough for the sentiment that held us together….no relation ever will be enough….these relations are at the level of soul and they don’t require any name, any mention…they just remain for life…and even after….there remains no need to try to hold it for the special feeling…any attempt at gathering and congregating it leads to a feeling of helplessness, of sand gushing through a hopelessly bound fist.…the beauty is in letting go…letting it flow…there might be no destination, no future to the relation…perhaps it’s not about the ending…it’s still about the story..

“People give flowers as presents because flowers contain the true meaning of Love. Anyone who tries to possess a flower will have to watch its beauty fading. But if you simply look at a flower in a field, you will keep it forever, because the flower is part of the evening and the sunset and the smell of damp earth and the clouds on the horizon.”

Perhaps, words will never be able to explain the touch, the feel a soul-mate leaves on you…there is purely no romance involved, and yet so much of love, purely no attraction and yet so much of gravity, purely no benefits, no expectations and yet an amount of care that keeps you going forever….a love so intense that it justifies the rest of our days…

“Is it possible to meet more than one Soul Mate in each life?”

“Yes,” thought Wicca with certain bitterness. And when that happens, the heart is divided, and the result is pain and suffering.”

“The essence of Creation is one and one alone,” she said. “And that essence is called Love. Love is the force that brings us back together, in order to condense the experience dispersed in many lives and many parts of the world. A Soul Mate is sure to cross our path. Even if it is only for a matter of moments, because those moments bring with them a Love so intense that it justifies the rest of our days.”

A soul-mate can be a teacher, a mother, a father, a brother, a friend, a stranger, a spouse, a granny….it just requires that person to make your eyes shine in any situation, someone who can make you feel safe when the whole world is crashing down…a person who can make you feel love in real terms…who touches you by never ever touching you....changes a part of you such that you never remain same…not any number of years will be enough with them, but even a moment with them earns a lifetime…Hope we all find ours… J

“Have you ever been in love with two men at once, Mum?” There was a defiant note in her voice, as if life had set its traps only for her.

“When I got here, however, I met a man. He seemed a bit startled at first, but then he relaxed. He was an archaeologist and had been driving north—where some ruins had been found. He asked me about the village and the other villages nearby, about historic monuments.” Suddenly, all the problems I’d been grappling with disappeared as if by magic. I felt really useful and started telling him everything I knew, feeling that the many years I’d spent in the region at last had some meaning. That man sitting on the steps made me understand that I was important to the world and to the history of my country. I felt necessary, and that’s the best feeling a human being can have.

“Before I knew it, the sun was low on the horizon, and never, in all my life, had time passed so quickly. I sensed that he felt the same. I could see in his eyes that he desired me. As if, suddenly, in the autumn of my life, when I thought I’d experienced everything.

I could experience, that man had appeared on the steps purely to show me that feelings—love, for example—do not grow old along with the body, but it’s a world where there’s no time, no space, no frontiers.”

“For many days, I wondered if that man really had existed, or if he was an angel sent by God to teach me the secret lessons of life. In the end, I decided that he had been a real man, a man who had loved me, even if only for an afternoon, and during that afternoon, he’d given me everything he had kept to himself throughout his whole life: his struggles, his joys, his difficulties, and his dreams. That afternoon I gave myself wholly as well—I was his companion, his wife, his audience, his lover. In a matter of only a few hours, I experienced the love of a lifetime.”

“I’ve never stopped loving your father, not for a single day,” she concluded. “He’s always been by my side, doing his best, and I want to be with him until the end. But the heart’s a mysterious thing, and I still don’t really understand what happened that afternoon.

What I do know is that meeting that man left me feeling more confident, and showed me I was still capable of loving and being loved, and it taught me something else that I’ll never forget: finding one important thing in your life doesn’t mean you have to give up all the other important things.

“I still think of him sometimes. I’d like to know where he is, if he found what he was looking for that afternoon, if he’s still alive, or if God took his soul. I know he’ll never come back, which is why I could love him with such strength and such certainty, because I would never lose him; he had given himself to me entirely that afternoon.”

Who knows I might know soul-mates better when I grow older….who knows I might find more parts of my soul…who knows you might be crossing your soul-mate everyday and still can’t place them? Let yourself loose…who knows a soul-mate might have just knocked?

“There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.”

― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

Because who knows? Forevers and infinities might actually exist…J

*Multiple anecdotes in this piece have been taken from Paulo Coelho's 'Brida', a wonderful book, very dear to me....with all due respect and credit to the great writer....Enjoy!

THE LONELY WEEKEND!!

2014-03-23T03:15:00.005+05:30

There are a few things that flow right from heart, a few pieces of writing for which you don’t agree to do a secondary research, and this is one. This is the craziest one I think, most not-thought-of, most so-not-me…but perhaps the one I would love few years down the lane! :D

I have spent this weekend practically alone….and lonely. I chose not to go out as usual, but the isolation gave me time to think about a lot of things; every possible emotion possibly crossed my mind…but perhaps the one that ruled was fear…the feeling of lost ground beneath my feet…a breathing uneasiness, a feeling of slipping sand from my fist…something wrong was up! If you are a verbose person, you can talk a lot to the world, but when it comes to talking to yourself, you can’t talk meaninglessly. Somehow, company of just yourself is a little unsettling, how much ever you love yourself. You won’t love to hear the distinct sounds you don’t even notice on a busy day, rustling leaves, tube light clicking, your computer’s fan going at a crazy speed now that you have watched every movie you could!! And then in the end you are left with yourself….and this time it’s perhaps not so difficult.

You try to gather yourself, procrastinate everything to evening and take a power nap..When did sleep become so disturbing for God’s sake!! After even Sherlock Holmes’s “solution to all problems” not working for you, you try doing something worthwhile and try wrapping some work up…Kidding yourself right?? And right then is the time that every insecurity that you ever secretly had, come talking to you..again the biggest fear of being left alone creeps up…You wanna stay away from your phone, keep ignoring everyone who calls, but still wanting them to call, dropping insignificant conversation stopper messages, in wish of never hearing back, but in hope of a reply, which the moment it comes is ignored willfully again!! What do you want? Will that ever be understood??!! You end up reading for sometime…it eases things a little…yeah!! Sigh!! Oh my God….since when they started writing romance in classics? Even more suffocating now!! Someone needs to kill me or else this will kill me now!!

Then you need to talk to yourself on why has breathing become a problem….and then the biiiig question- what ahead in life? Too broad a question!! Let’s move to what’s not comfortable…Mattress may be? Ahhh!!...if only life could be so simple!! There is something unsettling in the air itself….and then the welcome respite…a distracting phone call…an invitation for dinner…should be nice right?? What’s making you not want to budge? Lazy female!! You slip on the oldest pair of jeans and the most comfortable (however shabby!) t-shirt but okay…eating? Now that’s difficult for you?? Great! You gobble a few pieces, but with serious dearth of oxygen, do you want to close the air valve in exchange for a mere food valve?? Perhaps talking is better…the friend is as usual the jolly good fellow and you still are suffocating?? Are you the GATSBY or what?? Drag yourself home and switch the laptop on again…and then you realize a little of memories could help…Old pictures…and the memories come rushing back…Gawwd old videos….dudee!!! People love me…so much…do I really need to be talking to them to realize this? Shitt!! What loss are you thinking of?..What’s unsettling? Perhaps the distance, the inability to meet, perhaps not being with them?....you are on the verge of breaking..but possibly a little too emotional…you still can’t stop…you scroll through your timeline on social websites…and the only place you stop is an old piece you wrote! Ouchhh!! At the stroke of midnight (or an hour from that!! Who cares!!), it strikes….you need pen and paper..that’s all you need for a good night sleep. You need to write dear fella!!…however confusing, however meaningless…because that’s how you talk to yourself, to everyone…because one year is a little too long a time to stay away from it!! You take a risk of scaring your neighbors, open your creaking door and do a little star-gazing and a little of air…and you are ready to write…and only when the piece is over…you feel better, much better!! What is life without a few things you aren't insane about?J

Everyone needs a Superman!!

2013-02-26T01:19:00.000+05:30

Everyone needs a SUPERMAN!!

Have you ever noticed how badly you need superman? No, I am not talking about THE superman to save you from superhuman attacks….I am just asking about your superman…your personal superman…Does that leave you confused?

Let me answer it this way. I can distinctly remember a day when I had put in a lot of effort in sketching for a school project. I and my brother fought over something and at the end of the fight, my sketch sheet was crumpled. I started crying over it and just then my mother came with a straight sheet of paper with my sketch intact! That day my Mom became my superman…and in fact she will always be! She had just ironed the sheet of paper…but somehow it changed my day and the way I saw her. That day she became someone who could do anything, anything that seemed impossible, she could make milk taste better by just adding some secret syrup, she could make me reach school even after I missed the bus, she could convince anyone, she could show me plants turning their shoots while adapting to light, she could make any dish I could think of, she could make me do stuff which I thought I was not capable of doing, she could make me feel strong just by letting me shop for grocery, she could make my clothes look better just by dressing me herself, she could do everything I knew only fairies can do. And she has truly been the fairy who grants every wish. Over time, I have seen her doing things which only she can do and which are just impossible. Even today, there are times no one can comfort me as her voice can, she can make me talk when I keep saying to everyone else “I am alright”. She was my first and most favorite superman, my wonder!

Singularly, I got my next superman too soon. My Dad was the next miracle. He could do a lot of things which were even more difficult. He could open the containers my mom couldn’t open, he could impart life to plants which looked completely lifeless, he could make the mixer grinder work, he could make lamps grow brighter just by cutting the wick to perfection, he could mend my toys with ease, he could answer every question I had, with undying patience every time, he could make me feel powerful by taking me to his office, he could show me how stones sparked to give fire, he could show me small fishes munching food, he could give me that freedom to take small risks which other parents thought before giving, he could bring me books from other cities the same day I wanted them, he could solve the sums I could never understand, he could speak flawless English, he could even draw straight lines without a ruler!! All these were so great for me back then and I must admit to date, I know there have been great things my Dad has done, apart from the things which just seemed great to me. I have seen him perform those miracles as I grew up. Even before we know some problem has come, he has them solved already. Every time we have lost hope, he has tackled it, even at times when we have faced monetary problems, he has never let the effects reach us, and we have been over privileged every single day of our lives. He is my all time superman…one who can change the world!

My brother was my next superman. He could climb steep walls, he could scare away lizards, he could use pastel colors with perfect strokes, he could remember difficult spellings, could save me from the ‘enemy gang’, could manage anything, could get me that small packet of snacks I loved so much, could excel in each and every exam, could be that all rounder in school every mother wanted her child to be, could be my worst enemy and my best friend, could sometimes understand me better than my mom, could love me so dearly and yet never let it show ever.

If the process of growing up takes us closer to reality, it also takes us farther from the eventual realities of life. All this time, I never realized that I had a protective cover; I had someone in life who I believed could solve any problem and that’s what left me so carefree, secure and happy. I started believing that there are some problems that can’t be solved; there are some issues where we are limited by the human capabilities, some which are too big to be handled. Somewhere down the lane, I stopped believing in the magic potions, fairies, miracles and most importantly supermen, not because my supermen lost any of their abilities, but because I became too blind to see them! I didn't know that even if they don’t exist, somewhere they give us the comfort of belief. The loss of that comfort becomes taxing.

I had started living ‘practically’ and ‘rationally’. I started ‘being human’, just human, and exactly when I was about to move out from the whole concept of supermen, I had to give it a second thought! He took me back to the days of my innocence. He made me fly over earth, he made the breezes touch me gently, he made winds play violin for me, he made flowers bloom for me, he made the sun shy away, he made the dew wash away my scars, both physical and emotional, he could make the seas change tides over the wave of his hand, he could freshen air, he could make me run, be breathless and enjoy victory over myself, he made me do crazy things, he made me feel that I was the most favorite person on earth, he made me understand that even if I don’t get I want, even I lose out, even if I fail, it was okay because life was not about winning…life was about living, he made me see the colors in sky, the shapes in stars, the rainbows and the rains, he made me drench myself in the rain and still feel the same 8 year old kid I was, he let me muddle in puddles, he let me watch the ripples in water, he returned me the freedom again, not just to break away the cocoon I was in, but also to feel the shield so many supermen still had over me and I have to admit that my superman had started having the supernatural effect...happiness was back, in every damn situation!! Life changed so much because I again had someone who could do anything, yet again! I had found my next superman! He couldn’t do the miracles but had the power to convince me that the miracles were for me…and that’s what supermen do!

I have a renewed faith in the fact that everyone needs a superman, if not a person who can do anything, at least a person who can do anything for you! You can’t live with the feeling that there are things which can’t be done. You need and deserve an assurance that everything is possible. They might be anyone, your deity, your beloved, your parents, your friends or even yourself…but trust me, it’s wonderful to have a superman. Till the point you know he is out there, your life remains simpler, secure and happy. Everybody has a superman, you just need to look closer to find them and if you don’t find someone, it can’t get better, because here is the chance to become a superman…someone’s superman! J

THE CLOSING CEREMONY

2012-06-09T00:13:00.000+05:30

THE CLOSING CEREMONY

My alma mater has been a temple, a temple of knowledge, transformation, teamwork, books, friends, meaningfulness and most importantly, LIFE! Here is the first time that I pay tribute to it….because it deserves at least a final goodbye!

the last look...

“Inside the campus, you make the world go round, outside it; the world makes you go round!! Make the most out of it. I hope you all understand it soon”, said an emotional Mr. Ganapaty Subramaniam, our professor in the engineering mathematics class in the third semester after announcing the pathetic condition of our section in a test . Few paid attention to what he said and fewer to the fact that he was emotional for a change! Today, when I am all set to start a new life outside the college, I realize that it hurts to leave. It’s going to be the most difficult good-bye. Only those who have lived this life can understand the beauty of it. Think of the colors and flavors it brings along and it keeps amazing you with its variety. The best of friends, gorgeous gals, hot guys, first crush, break-ups, successes, failures, college fests, parties, night outs, movies, valentine days, raksha bandhans (!) and sometimes studies too! Right from the ‘Fresher’s day’ to the farewells, every day does count on the calendar of happiness. Every time I look back at my life, I become more and more assured that college life has been the best span of it.

We all have cursed the filthy assignments, strict teachers, narrow mentality, bad infrastructure, slimy management and what not?? But trust me; towards the end, everything undergoes a beautiful transformation. You start loving the broken desks, writing assignments, finishing courses, cleaning lab coats and most difficult of all, you start liking your room mate! It’s surprising to realize that you could be so sensitive to cry all alone on window for those whom you had started taking for granted. The other day when I started packing up for home, I found comic notes passed during classes, passport size photographs stolen at crucial junctures, the first rose I received, the first assignment, the test papers, the metal scraps from workshops, the never used diaries and many things that made the 4 years pass before me in a split second.

A punch in the identity card you hated to carry around, changes everything. Every spot at the campus starts reminding you of an incidence, every face that you have grown in habit of looking every day at, starts moving afar, the mess workers suddenly seem so friendly, mess food turns delicious, the spectacles become more beautiful, evening coffees with friends seem more refreshing than ever, you start noticing so many new things because finally you started looking at your college as if you will never see it again. You start living the life you had always dreamt of, only to find that it’s all going to end very soon. The last days hurt more because it’s a happiness that knows limits.

And it all strikes suddenly when your train starts for your hometown. You see the city that made your most beautiful years, passing through the window, you know you can’t do anything to stop the time, you know you can’t help it and tears roll down while your friends wave goodbye at the junction. You shout out few words of care, routine abuses and jump out of the train to hug them one last time. You know that to gain very few things in life further, you are going to lose a lot. And still you have to let the wheels of time move. All through the journey it feels as if someone had just cut a connection that was there since you began and this wound is never going to heal. Back at home, when you reach, it’s more surprising to find yourself up to nothing! Yes! Positively nothing! Even if you were not a workaholic at campus, you are unable to enjoy a stay at home, a place you rushed to at the shortest of holidays. You feel had you come a little later, you could have stolen a day more at your favorite hang out at campus, an evening more of fresh air at the sky scrapers, a night more in your hostel bed, one more fight with your room mate, one more look at your crush, one more hug from a dear friend, one more day of life!! You know none of this is possible and you soothe yourself with the cool breeze from your bedroom window half wishing that it has come touching your college and. You talk to family and distract yourself from tears, you wish for all of it to come back and start finding ways. You hope convocation was a little earlier…..You promise yourself to be in contact with those who matter and pull up your laptop to write this piece…and life goes on! J

REASON TO LIVE

2012-03-16T15:44:00.000+05:30

REASON TO LIVE

There is this old friend of mine, XYZ, who seemed to find loss of reasons to live. He wanted me to help him with finding them. I wrote a letter to him 5 years back that I am opening for all my readers after few editions…it may be of use to some…Do let me know of the experience…after you finish reading

Dear XYZ,

If you want me to be honest with you, ya…when you asked me last night “Tell me what to do, I will surely try if I have already not tried”, I felt happy and confused at the same time. Happy because someone like you believes so much in me and confused because I was at loss of ideas suddenly. After a lot of thinking, I have concluded that you only can find a reason for continuing your life; I can only help you find it. I am not sure if I will be able to convince you or not, but I ensure you I will try to explain myself most clearly. It might seem a bit stupid that I googled ‘reasons to live’. I am not someone who understands the concept of suicide, and that too because of a reason that doesn’t deserve it. If I ever think of committing suicide, it will be because I find a reason big enough to kill myself, not because I don’t have a reason to live. Had it been anyone else, I would have been alarmed at any such decision. However, in your case, perhaps I was able to understand since I can see what’s stopping you from wanting to live. The loss of any reason accounts to be a big issue to me too. May be science taught us to rationalize everything, find cause for everything and search for reasons of everything!

Perhaps being alive is reason enough to continue living, perhaps tomorrow is reason enough, perhaps being able to see miracles is reason enough, perhaps mom’s desserts are reason enough, perhaps plans to achieve something is reason enough, perhaps maintaining ecological balance is reason enough!!….But I know in such a case, none of the reasons will suffice. It’s not because your life is actually short of reasons, but perhaps because you have closed doors for those reasons. I strongly believe that every person is different. By being in this world, you add something that was not there before and will never be again. You surely have a purpose. The purpose of life is a life of purpose.

You say that your parents will overcome your loss. Let me tell you that they may overcome the demise of XYZ, but never of their son. You can’t imagine the pain in a father’s heart at the death of a young son. They have worked up whole married life to make your life better and this is not a good time to take leave. I know this is not a reason for you as you want something on personal level, but please think it over twice.

There are people who wish to live for another day, another hour, another moment but they don’t have a choice. You have. You can choose between life and the end of it. I just want your choice to be correct…and I am not biased. I will try to understand your viewpoint too. Make your story count. And end it only when you think you made it count.

There are so many things you have got to do. If you were a married man with a wife and children, I am sure your perspective would have been different. And trust me; 5 years down the lane, you will be thankful that I stopped you from calling it a life! Who knows a person of your caliber may give the world a third category of engines, a novel magic trick that can’t be beaten, a counselor who can give people reasons to live. Perhaps you don’t give future and dreams space in your life. Dreams are what keep most people going. There should be a reason for tomorrow.

We both don’t believe in life after death. So technically, we have just one life without Ctrl+Z. And wasting it without trying and waiting with patience for the reason to come up to the mind, can be a bit of a loss.

"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough." ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Few people on the internet expressed their reasons to live as follows: Find if you share their reasons to live:

· I have been depressed for a while, but on Friday, a dyslexic boy who I have been teaching to read finally managed to get through a chapter without stopping, the look on his face when he managed it, made me happier than I had ever been before, and since then everything's seemed a lot brighter and bad things have seemed smaller and less important

· Because before when you thought back to a time in the future when things were different to how you think they might be now, you wouldn't have realized that the way it seems to you then would be so much better!

· The challenge of realizing that how you perceive things changes. How you perceived it before, at the moment when it happens, and then later on are almost invariably quite different, sure makes life interesting!

· Your life is gift, but not given to you alone. Everyone you know has their own precious "you" that they love and cherish. Would go into the homes of the people who love you and smash up their precious things?

· Music that soothes the soul, art is reason in itself.

· Because tomorrow is a new beginning!

· Because you never know when the next miracle is going to happen!

· Because all the effort and thought you put into dying can also be channeled into helping you live....and however bad the now is, however you feel and whatever pain and heart wrenching anguish you feel, it will move, grow and change and ultimately lessen and pass.....universal law of recovery. Death however is completely final .There is no second thoughts, no changing your mind and no passing.

· Because if you aren't on this earth you cannot feel the wind rush past you on a flying fox, the bubbles pound your skin in a spa bath; you can't see the gorgeous colors of a sun rise or experience the calm of that time of day, and you can’t smell the rain on the hot pavement.

· Suicide does not end your pain; it just passes it on to the ones you love.

· Living is really hard, but death is forever. We’re all going to die eventually, so what’s your rush' Even if you think committing suicide will make you seem tragic and romantic and cool, you’ll never know what happened anyway. Don’t you want to know how your life was supposed to turn out? Wouldn’t you like to see what you’re made of?

· If people think things are at rock bottom and couldn't get any worse that means they can only get better from there. Think about friends and family whose hearts would be breaking. It's not the answer, live for them if you don't want to live for yourself. But nothing that happens, as bad as it gets, would ever be worth not being able to experience the world around us, for every person with a problem there is always someone who will listen.

· If you take a decision to abstain from suicide. You can live carefree and off the edge. Hence you can try anything that a life-loving person will hesitate doing. Research indicates lots of us are happier when we feel like we have some control over our lives.

· General randomness leads to disaster more often than not (check out the law of entropy)!!! :P

· I have been a drug addict for 30years. I am now 2 and half years clean from it and life without drugs is a miracle for me. And here is a poem I wrote for this.

THE SECRET
I have come to this juncture in my life, merely because something in me kept saying you deserve to be happy.
Every single moment that I have come through, were all prepared for this moment right now. Imagine what you can do from this day forward with what you now know.
Now you get that you are the creator of your own destiny.
So how much more do you get to do, how much more do you get to be?
How many more people do you get to bless, simply by your mere existence what will you do with this moment?
How will you seize this moment.
No one else can dance your dance, no one can sing your song, and no one can write your story.
What you are, what you do, begins right now?
GERARD BUTTERFIELD

Here is another short poem that might make you understand why to live……

THE MISSION
There is not one of us from the day were born knows our purpose or our mission in life.
All you have to really understand what am I doing here, so our purpose is what you say it is.
Your mission is the mission you give yourself.
Your life will be what you create it as.
And no one will stand in judgment of it now or ever.
You will get to fill your life with whatever you want.
If you have filled it in with baggage from the past wipe it clean, erase everything from the past that does not serve you, and be grateful it brought you to this place now.
And now to a new beginning.
You have a clean slate, and you can start over.
Right here, Right now.
Find your joy and live it.

If you want to see more reasons people choose to live, check these links: http://www.thereasons.ca/stories.php

http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2011/countless-reasons-to-live/

http://1000000reasons.tumblr.com/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/why-not-fifteen-reasons-to-live-by-ray-robertson/article2201506/

Ok, tell me one thing, if you are asked by a genie as of now, what will your 3 wishes be, if I may add make them realistic? I am sure you won’t waste your wish in asking for death. That is something you yourself can accomplish. So, just make a quick note of these wishes. And you need to do this. Make the wish list.

Now suppose for a moment you don’t have any plans of suicide. Can these three wishes become your reason to live? Can you live to turn these to reality?

If I weren’t alive today, suppose I committed suicide 2 years back, we wouldn’t have met, never talked and you might have taken the step and we both might have ended up dead. I surely like this better. I have liked the 2 years more than I would have liked death certainly. Life is called life because of the life in life! And it’s important to live fully before you die. LIVE before you die. Make it count. Death is an easy option, Life is difficult. Choose what suits you better J

It is as we continue living that we realize truly how wonderful life is! It can be seen only by giving life a chance.

Don’t you want to live on and know if Hillary is better than Obama, or if Higgs boson exists, if someone in your era discovers the reason for Mona Lisa’s smile, or may be see Darwin’s theory being negated or see the way a close friend fulfilled his/her dream, or see another Sherlock Holmes writer coming up? I am sure you are thinking, “How does it matter anyway?” And my answer is, it actually doesn’t matter, none of it matters an ounce. But that’s what life is made of-little silly things that don’t matter! But you enjoyed every bit of it when you were a child. You know why? Because you didn’t think of it…because you enjoyed what came your way. Try doing that again. Stop searching for a rational clue, stop being clever. Remain silly for a moment, and tell me honestly, does life matter?

I remember you saying that you don’t value life. Still you believe in helping others. You respect the liberty to live, the right to survival. Just think of it. Why it is not termed as ‘the right to die’? There are numerous ways to kill yourself but there is just one way of living-by not dying! Life has beautiful colors, stupendous chances, lovely people, great purposes and what not. Death has the end of it. It will eventually come anyway, why not live till then? Finding a purpose seems to be a difficult task till you don’t open yourself to the resonance of the universe. Try establishing a connection with people, things and I am sure you will find reasons. Get hold of a reason that makes you feel better in any way and you think is worth living for. Just be patient and don’tbe hasty with such a big decision like life and death.

As far as I am concerned, I wish you could remain here and stop thinking about any attempt in the other direction. May be you can’t think of a reason because you are thinking too much. It’s said that, “Everything that you run after, makes you run after it. Stop running and it comes and sit at your shoulder” Had it not been for you, I wouldn’t have ever known what Uncyclopedia, deterministic theory, being judgmental, magic and so many other things were. You add one primary color to my life that no one else can, exactly as everybody else in my life does. You are important to me, and I am sure to many others in your life. I supposed love can be an anchor point for everybody. You seem reluctant to that too. Don’t stop yourself from getting close to somebody. Love comes when you stop looking & start living. And if not that, concentrate on the love your mother’s eyes hold. I just have one request, open up and give life a chance! Don’t ask yourself ‘why?’ instead ask ‘why not?’

You gave a second thought after I met u, by chance discussed the purpose of life while talking. May be what u say is true-deterministic. Perhaps it can happen only the way it’s happening. Perhaps because you perform magic tricks, you can rationalize it, but for me, magic is that you gave it a second thought, just because I said. It feels great that somebody is alive because I chose life 2 years back! J

Life begins when you open your eyes to all the beautiful things to be happy about.

If you still are skeptic about your decision, just think of people who fight so hard with diseases like cancer and AIDS for living, Read about people like Lance Armstrong and visit, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/why-not-fifteen-reasons-to-live-by-ray-robertson/article2201506/

Life surely means more. Try and understand the value of it. Visit hospitals, let yourself become aware that there are people who die, but wanted to live. The main protagonist in the movie Troy says, “The Gods envy us, because we are mortal, because any moment can be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we are doomed”. Beautify the existence. Do all you always wanted to apart from dying!

I NEED A BREAK

2012-01-21T06:21:00.000+05:30

I NEED A BREAK!!!

Time has perhaps already taken away what man took away from time. Every advancement has asked for a return from us, and that too valuable than the progress itself. If you notice, every instance will bring forward an example how man has become a slave to his everyday routine and technology. A vending machine has barred spouses making bed tea in the mornings; automatic toasters have started giving the crispiness that only mothers were capable of rendering, svelte gadgets have replaced the tape recorders that took an effort to play, walking on foot has become too tiring in presence of cheap means of transport, Google has made the world smaller that was perhaps flat once, mobile revolution has convinced people that writing letters is too slow a medium, visual classes have replaced the awesome teachers, power of love and love of power have interchanged long back, at every step humanity seems long lost…. [With all due respect, but for the sake of quoting the changes since old times] In fact men find it tedious to move razors around the face and guess what? They have automated that too!!

There comes a point in life when a person, despite all his achievements starts to think- “So what?”, “What next?”, “What’s the use?”, and “What the hell have I been doing all these years?” And that’s the time you see yourself actually. While creating an image for the world, somewhere we remain stuck in that. We forget what we are in order to prove what we can be. The realization keeps coming and we keep not attending to it. It builds up so heavily sometimes that breathing becomes secondary to it. And that’s when one realizes that he/she can’t even remember the last time when he/she did something for the first time. Okay, for an exercise, ask yourself,

· When did you last gaze the night sky?

· When did you last smile at the mirror?

· When was the last time when you talked to an old friend?

· When you sat just with yourself, not with a laptop or music player?

· When did you last do what you mention as hobby on your resume?

· When was the last time you appreciated someone who can’t be of any advantage to you?

· When did you last sleep happily and content at night?

Did you answer “LONG BACK” to these questions? Trust me, we all are the same…we need a break, a desperate one!!

“If you want a different result, do something different”

Last time I had this realization, I did something about it. I paused and saw the world as it rushed past me. I saw everyone so bound to their routine and time & skill management that they have lost the innocence and simplicity they were born with. They have forgotten that happiness exists and have lost the hope of ‘life in life’. All of this reminded me of a story I was told in childhood about a greedy man. This man wanted a lot of land. The king offered him to take away all the land he could cover by walking till sunset. The man kept walking all day and just before the dusk, he covered the whole land. As he kept his last step, he died out of exertion. He was buried and all the land he finally got was some 6 feet!

Similarly, the race has become so important for us that we see just the destination without caring about the journey. Life has to be enjoyed and lived. We are not born to survive and excel. To cry out aloud, the basic purpose is to LIVE and we don’t give it a chance because we feel that getting good grades, adding bonus to salary, having a lavish house, earning appreciation of boss and thing like these matter more. However, the converse seems to be true when your hair turns grey, you retire and sit alone outside your house waiting to complete your life cycle.

Don’t let your life become a regret. Or else it will not long before you feel so hollow inside that you breakdown at the slightest jolt to your confidence. Later, you will have money but no one to spend on, vehicles but nowhere to go, food but no hunger and life but no desire to live. Start today. Start living! It requires just small effort and a willingness to do it. And don’t excuse yourself by convincing that you have a busy life because it doesn’t take time to live. Add life to your survival.

Go out in the morning and watch the dew on grasses even if it requires you to wake up ten minutes earlier. Sit out in the night on terrace for few moments and watch the star studded sky. Close your laptop windows and look out from windows in your room for a second. Try smiling at yourself while combing. Smile at strangers and who knows you might start making friends? Take out the slam book of your school time and read through to find out how crazy you have been. Remember your college days and remind yourself how you enjoyed living off the edge. Dust the old albums and take a look at your life. Call an old friend and let him know that it is worth having him in life. Take risks. Do something crazy every day. Tell your waiter that you loved the food and the way he served it. Talk to the security guard of your building who has seen nothing but humane machines rushing in and out of the gate and check out the surprise and gleam in his eyes. Click a photo of the children on roadside. Clean your room. Take a break from video conferences and meetings. Write a letter to your parents telling them how much you love them.

Forget contests and search the internet for a soothing music. Don’t hesitate in appreciating people around, even if they are not an acquaintance. Don’t worry if your dream couldn’t become your job, still pursue your hobby. Remain simple and avoid show off because in the end what YOU think of yourself is more important. Feel the connection every single thing and being poses with you. Try seeing the thin threads the world is spun with. Irrespective of who you are, you will find yourself to be at the centre of it, a part of the Supreme Being. Don’t underestimate the power of your smile; it surely adds magic to the beholder’s life. Love unconditionally and remember, “You are not loved because you are special, you are special because you are loved”. Stop saying “love ya” routinely. For a change, give your beloved some time, sit silently and yet have the most wonderful conversation. Find a mentor. Allow life to flow through yourself. As Albert Einstein said once, “You can live in just two ways, either by believing nothing is a miracle or by believing everything is a miracle”, and trust me, the latter helps! You make your routine, don’t let the routine make you. Take a break whenever you feel like and don’t take life too seriously.

Let your true self come out of the inhibitions in your mind, because generally the one stopping you is YOU!! Do all you would have done, had you known that you couldn’t fail. Have confidence that all you have done is a result of your efforts and deeds and you can change things as and when you want to. Believe that you are the creation’s favorite child who is here to fulfill a space no one in the universe ever can, because you are the only one of your kind. You must be what they all call ‘SPECIAL’!!! J

2011-11-26T22:02:00.001+05:30

HOW NECESSARY IS CHANGE?

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive or the most intelligent, but the ones who are most adaptive to change”-Mostly attributed to Charles Darwin

When you are through changing, you are through. ~Bruce Barton

Nothing that is can pause or stay;
The moon will wax, the moon will wane,
The mist and cloud will turn to rain,
The rain to mist and cloud again,
Tomorrow be today.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Accept what you can’t change and change what you can’t accept…" How true is it? Can one actually change the things he/she can’t accept? Probably no... One can change oneself but certainly not the situation…that is what I feel…many will disagree…I do understand…now this again is something that can’t be changed!!! However hard you try, not every person around you agrees. It’s not negative in any sense…it’s just a situation; one CAN’T change because everyone IS different. My Abhivyakti today is on the inevitable…’CHANGE’.

Ever wondered what changed inside you that makes you run away from rain that you loved to dance in? Why you don’t appreciate your mother’s smile anymore while it was enough to make you laugh aloud when you were a baby? Why you aren't happy at your father’s approval? Why the sight of a zoo doesn’t excite you now? Why a train is now just a means of transport? Why flowers are just meant to be given at official presentations? Why your girlfriend/boyfriend is no more attractive? Why your spouse is not able to decide that you love them or just live with them? Why you eat to survive? Why you have a watch but no time? Why you have money but no desires? Why your friends have forgotten you? Why you don’t see yourself in the mirror and smile anymore? Why is it that life started being monotonous? Why nothing changes?

Because YOU changed…………

I am also the common person who starts finding shade in sun, roof in rain, comfort in living, security in relations, respect in colleagues, love in friends, companion in a crowd, shoulder to rest on and somebody who listens. In the race to be unique, I forgot to be common. I forgot that every single thing around me is happening FOR ME. Every flower I see on my way is meant to be there, just for me to enjoy it, every single person I meet on the way is there to cross my way, the Sun rises to see my well being, people were created to be my friends, my college was built so that I could come and study, the universe was created so that I could be born and be a part of the creation. It’s difficult to actually feel this, but when you do, you will understand that everything around you is a miracle. Every molecule of air, every drop of water, every smile, every tear, every person, every feeling and every object becomes magical. Every day becomes special. Today is special for me, because today someone made me understand that however I looked, behaved or dressed, I was special, very special. And so is everyone. One just needs feel what no one else can feel, feel oneself. And when I felt the miracle today, somehow I could control the speed of rain and the presence of Sun!!

Today I did all I never do. I woke up early, took a morning walk, walked over the grass, caressed the dew, saw the Sun playing peek-a-boo with the clouds, drenched myself in rain at least after a decade, felt every drop of it falling on my face, imbibing it inside me, touched streams of water running down the barks of trees, jumped in small puddles, broke some rules, laughed aloud, talked a lot, (yes! I didn’t speak today, I talked), sang to myself, had a relaxing bath and am doing what I love the most, I am writing! Today has been a miracle, not because I did different things but because I am different today. I understand that “Today is a gift and hence it’s called ‘present’!!”

It’s true that when time changes, no one can remain same. Of course a CEO can’t actually jump into puddles and an employee can’t make faces at the boss…but, why not change the change? Why not try a different change?

CHANGE AGAIN………

The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists ~Japanese Proverb

It took a long discussion with my friend to understand that change is necessary because I am a stern believer in ‘being myself’. I can finally make out that being oneself is at a very personal level and change is at a social level. One remains the same since birth to death. Difficult to believe??

Ok, then how do you explain a grown up crying out of happiness at the birth of his/her child? the enthusiasm of a mountain climber at the sight of a cliff? the thrill in a 90 year old at a place of worship? the tears of an Olympic winner at the prize ceremony? Match these emotions and you will find that the people never changed. They can feel emotions as strongly as they could earlier at smaller but surely equally important things. Just the frequency has decreased, that too since they have wanted the same. I came across the quote “Crying doesn't indicate you are weak, it has always been a sign that you are alive”

In the attempt to flaunt ourselves, we cover every emotion under the camouflage of showoff, not only in monetary terms, but also in relations, friendship and work. while being oneself, if you find change in yourself, accept it. This change comes from the situations. It must have been required. You don’t need to explain it to anyone but yourself. Stop manipulating your feelings; they don’t come with a feedback!! Feelings must be what you feel, not what you want to feel. You don’t need to say someone that you still love him/her if you don’t feel the same anymore. You don’t need to feel ashamed to say your wife that she can’t scold your mother. You don’t need to feel awkward for opposing your friend. You don’t need to act with close ones. Give them the respect of honesty at least. It hurts to admit the truth but for a short term, it paves way for a happier long term. You don’t have to think before doing something that you know is rightHowever, this doesn't mean banging your boss’s head! Discretion lies in your hands always. :P…

You have to change according to the situation, not for the situation!

“Change before you have to” -Jack Welch

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them ~George Bernard Shaw

Choice of adaptation and fighting in a change rests with us. Even if a change doesn't occur for good which it generally does, try to understand that this is the way life happens to everyone. What is not yours was never meant to be yours. What is yours will be passed on to someone else. If you have anything that you feel is going to last forever, you are being foolish. If you want someone to stay forever, you are asking for the impossible, because anything, however strong, will change ultimately.

The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery. -Harold Wilson

"Your very life depends upon your willingness to change"

However, life is too short to be spent in worry of what’s coming next. We need to look through and find ways to look at the change in a different way. Give a chance to short term, change your looks, experiment with your hair, try a new nail paint, go to a gym, get a new phone, buy some trendy outfits, feel the breeze, be crazy, feel happy and young, have the talent to hold on but have the courage to let go, give a smile to your neighbor and the mirror… because there are few things you can change. Don’t resist those. J The power is to change is in your hands too.

Change your life before life changes you!

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy. -W. Somerset Maugham

Read more quotes @ http://www.quotegarden.com/change.html

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

2011-07-22T20:27:00.002+05:30

Got to thank all my readers...for the happiness they have endowed upon me....My blog page views just reached 500...Thank you all!!

2011-06-29T03:12:00.002+05:30

20 years is a long time…..very long..

Situated at 22° 48' 0" N latitude and 86° 11' 0" E longitude, Jamshedpur is a city in India…but it’ not JUST another city…neither for me nor for the history of India. Who can forget the contribution of Jamshetji Tata in the Industrial revolution in India? The city is situated around the factories set up around 1900 on the banks of river Swarnrekha. It’s a beautiful city with greenery, organization and management peeping from every nook and corner.

As for me, the importance exceeds…it was where I was born and tonight, sitting in a guest house at Jamshedpur (J) near the most beautiful area called Jubilee park, I am not able to contain my excitement over the happenings today. My father was posted here around 20 years back, and that is when I was born…I, my parents and my elder brother lived here….yes two decades back…sounds like so much time…J however, it passed so quickly. Since we left the city on my father’s transfer when I was merely one year old, I have been to the city twice, every time packed with schedule. It’s yesterday morning that I came back to the place I was born….a place that connects to me mysteriously, that surely has a call for me…The reason of course is materialistic again…a training in Tata Steel, previously known as TISCO. However, my father and I finally took time out to roam in the daily market at Sakchi, eat dosa at an old restaurant and savor kulfi in the rain. I don’t remember the place a bit but it seems I have always been here, as if the place belongs to me. Suddenly, I had a yearning to see the house where I was brought up, where I was showered with the love no one can ever again give, where I was sung lullabies and where I was new to the whole world….

We started off to what is called Adityapur. As my father depicted the new locality he saw, I could see in his eyes that it had changed…or may be fully transformed. The houses were no more identifiable and there were a lot of new shops, malls and apartments. We neither had the house number nor the name of the landlord, only memories. My father started remembering things the moment we reached the street. However, among hundreds of identical houses where does one search for a 20 year old house that was 1 storey at that time, painted in white, and that was near a shed? I was getting nostalgic with the memories I never had….The air getting into my lungs was showcasing my whole life to me. It all passed as a beautiful movie in front of my eyes. I almost narrated every incidence of my life, honestly,….to the CITY. I was really desperate to have a look on the house, the house without a name, but since always inscribed on my heart. After a search that lasted around an hour, someone finally got an idea of what we were speaking…it was the same cow shed…it stood there at the same place, and now memories could no longer play hide and seek…My father recognized the house at once!!! It was THE house. I literally ran to it…I was in the true sense not able to contain myself…didn’t even think that it was not ours now…A few seconds passed very silently…without me knowing for sure because till then, people had come out of the house and my father was already in a talk with them. I had visualized the scene since childhood so many times that it all was more of a déjà vu! I ran inside the house and saw the whole of it in one go…Memories or rather visualizations started coming from nowhere when I saw the room I always slept, the cow shed I was taken to in mornings, the market where my parents shopped, the water supply pipe just outside the house, the police station where I was taken to in evenings for fresh air (:D), the door that I saw in an old snap, the field that was barren then, the courtyard where my father once encountered a big snake, the kitchen where my mother made those mouth watering dishes I didn’t eat, the corridor where I was left for playing, the place where I slept everyday munching biscuits, the gate that was intact after 20 years too, the street that saw me run for the first time, the trees that must have seen me growing up…the place that was the world for a one year old kid.

We were invited in for a cup of tea and as I sat in a chair, I could not explain the tears that started rolling out, even to me. The house was more so of a Pandora’s box for me, that held in store a willingness for me, that had so much to show me and it waited for so long, that had missed me, that had loved me, that had once protected me, that was standing there as t was amongst the tall houses that changed their looks over time, that was rejoicing my arrival…May be it sounds stupid, but the house made me cry, really, the adrenaline rush through me every other second was equally unaccountable….I was no more understanding all happenings around me, all that I could see that I had repaid a debt, that I held. It deserved a visit, for sure…It has made me happy beyond bounds…I don’t think words will ever be able to express what I am feeling now…. :)

I am sorry but no promises this time...

2011-06-20T02:47:00.002+05:30

Hey people...I am really sorry for being absent since so long...I worked on three writings during this time....And then there were some unexpected scenarios in life....Could patch up and could write I know...but writing for me comes with feeling...and that was simply not coming. And suddenly, it came out of the blue...I wrote the full thing in mere 20 minutes...at Kolkata airport...Hope you all enjoy the read...Will try to be regular though :P

HOW IT FEELS TO FLY???

2011-06-20T02:29:00.004+05:30

Although an air travel is not a big deal today, but the first time surely counts. I loved flying back to my hometown this vacation. Read through the experience I had…J

HOW IT FEELS TO FLY???

I flew….I actually flew….Oh my God!! It was an experience worth it…..Even the fact that the medium was an airplane, can’t mar the feeling of being in the clouds….through them…. After devouring a flight today to my hometown, I feel man’s incessant desire to scale the heights of sky were surely never exaggerated. The attempts of Wright brothers was not for making yet another gadget or redefining luxury….It was as ambitious an attempt as Columbus’ …in search of something really new. I experienced the new today, after so many decades…but the charisma remains…still!

The airplanes actually disappoint you in beginning, not in terms of service but definitely in terms of huge expectations you have. But it’s short lived…really temporary, the surprises, the beauty out folds…and that too quite unimaginably. A bus leaves you to the big bird and you suddenly gaze at the windows that not only looked small from far, but even are small, just in size to accommodate your face and a little more. After ensuring a comfortable seating you are exactly in time to catch a glimpse of the smartly trained stewards and stewardesses. One can’t help from instantly wanting to live their life.

Then the plane starts moving first backwards and then forward but, to your dismay, it “runs” no faster than the bus that took you till here. It seems to move pointlessly on the runway for more than ten seconds. And exactly when you think the plane is going to bash into the airdrome boundary, you hear a sound of engines and thousands of motors and electronic circuits coming to life. A huge roar takes place of the smooth run and you have “the feeling”, the feeling that assures the heights you have never attained. The plane covers the rest of the runway in a speed that first reminds you of the time when you first rode a bicycle, then of the day your father took you for a smooth ride in evening to grocery, then of your elder brother trying to tease you over the speed he could attain on a new driver’s license, next of your boyfriend trying to show the enormous balance he could maintain on a fast running stylish bike. But finally it all passes and the flight reaches a velocity you were yet to know….and then it takes off!...The moment you had been waiting for…the big white bird streamlines to the sky. Not a moment of panic strikes you…All that strikes is the beauty….the beauty of a world you never appreciated from down there, the beauty that adds to the things when they become Lilliputian, the beauty when you see the sea, sky and land all at a time…the beauty when you can’t tell sky from the sea, the beauty when you see clouds in the sea, the beauty when clouds go past your window and you curse the atmospheric pressure gradient for not being able to touch them, the beauty when you realize that you mistook a large steamer in the sea to be a fish…and then the feeling dawns upon you….that you are indeed on the top of the world….you are IN the sky. Sun shining on the wings reflecting to your face adds sheen to your mood for sure. The beauty that a slight rain can add is still lovelier. Thin strands of rain water freshly seeping from the nearby clouds are truly a sight. The night sky is a paradise coming into scene. When you gaze down at the land….You see a panorama that resembles a Christmas tree! The small cities, the smaller houses, all drop down to a light source. The land looks far far beautiful than the sky. The propellers rotating just outside your window don’t encourage fearfulness but awfulness. It surely takes one an air travel to think of the wonderful way mankind has evolved!!!

Outside sometimes seems like a movie that could not accommodate good video effects because it’s all so perfect that it starts seeming artificial…How many perfect things have we seen anyway? So perfect a backdrop also leaves man bored in some time. And then he awaits the landing. The first sight of land peeping from the clouds is welcome. The small houses, the elongated roadways, the two dimensional view of the world keeps you captivated. Exactly then your captain informs the proximity of your destination. The plane takes a steep turn sideways and the first feeling of panic mixed with excitement brings you to senses. The plane keeps declining down and then lowers down to the airport in view. You can feel the wind gushing outside your window. And then the wheels touch the land with a slight jerk and you are back on the planet as you knew it from beginning. Fortunately, if it’s raining, you can experience a surge of water vapor from under the plane at this moment. The crew thanks you and bides a goodbye and you come back enriched from an experience of a lifetime.

THEN....

AND NOW...

FORGIVENESS

2010-07-17T23:06:00.006+05:30

PEARLS OF WISDOM

FORGIVENESS.....all about the virtue

Hello everyone! .... Here is my first pearl of wisdom...something very great and an attribute of only the strongest.....it’s FORGIVENESS. And I am sorry for such a long absence from the blog...but I didn’t post since I was not eligible!! Yes I was struggling hard to forgive someone who didn’t even ask for it but here forgiving was important....and I finally forgave!! The feeling is just unmatchable. I feel free now after a long time and eligible to post this now...

So, why do I choose forgiveness as the first pearl??

How many times have you faced a situation in which you knew it was out and out your mistake and you had ruined something very important....and then you beg for forgiveness? How badly you wish to hear the words “YOU ARE FORGIVEN” even when you know that forgiveness can’t mar the loss you have caused?

Rest assured, it has been faced by everyone at least once in life!

Ok, now be honest and remind yourself of a situation when you were on the other side of the hedge....someone asking you for a forgiveness over a huge loss he/she caused to you knowingly/unknowingly? However strong the emotions of the asker be, it was not possible for you to say “YOU ARE FORGIVEN”?

May be this situation has not been faced by all of us....the only reason being people not asking for forgiveness out of fear of not being forgiven.

Anyway, did you notice the stark differences between the two situations? How one wants to be forgiveN but not forgive? Truly it’s more than difficult to forgive someone and those who forgive are wise...truly wise...so, forgiveness is indeed a pearl of wisdom....

Let’s suppose you just had a bitter experience. Someone did something to you that you consider inexcusable; let it vary from ‘someone shattering your faith’ to ‘breaking you crockery’, from ‘saying something to hurt you’ to ‘stealing your stationery’, from ‘creating misunderstandings with an important person’ to ‘gossiping about you’, from ‘leaving you all alone forever after a lifetime of promises’ to ‘spilling water over your favourite painting’, from ‘a colleague destroying your reputation in front of your boss’ to ‘your best friend being jealous of you’.....consider any mistake or offence that seems unforgivable. Why does it seem so difficult to forgive in these situations? Is it that we don’t want to forgive? Or is it that we want to see the wrong-doer suffer? Or do we think that he/she simply doesn’t deserve it? Or do we feel supreme in letting him/her not have forgiveness? Or just the thought of the person pleading seems comforting? What is it that stops us from freeing the person or rather ourselves?

Mostly it is the thought of not the person but the offence that recurs and makes things difficult for us. Let us analyse this. You have been badly hurt, but how? It’s obvious that the person was not expected to behave in the way he/she did. Surely he/she was able to hurt you because you let him/her do it to you. Anyway, it’s not wrong to let people get into your comfort zone. It’s not at all wrong to trust someone. But now when you are already hurt, and you can’t revert the situation, then it’s important to forget the bad experience and remember all the good experiences you ever had with the person. It’s unbelievable the way, this solution works. Don’t let the good memories let bring any bitterness of not being there anymore, just let them fill you with the happiness that they were there at least for once in your life. As soon as any ounce of the latest offence reaches even a corner of your mind, wash it away with the sweetest memory of that person. Delete any sms that reminds you of the offence, put the destroyed painting or broken crockery out of your sight. Don’t think about the misunderstandings or the shattered faith. Just throw the offence out of your memory and you will see how easy it becomes to forgive and even forget. Let the offence out of your life not the offender. Hate the wrong not the wrong-doer.

Secondly, the thought that comes to mind is WHY? Why should such a hurting person be forgiven? Let me assure you that “Forgiveness is not indeed a great unselfish work; it’s all you do for yourself.” It’s not evident but you suffer more than the person asking for forgiveness till you don’t forgive. When you forget, a stream of greatness washes you away; you start feeling good about yourself. It seems Mark Twain always wrote with you in consideration that “Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds over the heel that crushed it”. The world becomes same as it ever was. It seems a clichéd dialogue but you have to trust me....I just encountered a situation where forgiving made my life better and it’s not about my greatness or modesty. I forgave even when I knew it was too difficult and I was never asked for it, but I was selfish enough to forgive!! :)

Now there are many facets of forgiveness- forgiving others is important undoubtedly, but forgiving yourself is more important and crucial. There are times when you feel that you are the perfect enemy of yourself, there are times when you hurt a person more important than your own life, sometimes you spill coffee over your new dress you planned to wear for the evening or scold your child over some trivial issue or simply say what you shouldn’t have to your spouse just to check if he/she cares for you (sounds horrible, but happens isn’t it?)....these are the situations where you don’t even have anyone but yourself to blame! It’s not that you don’t feel for yourself, but that you feel more for that person or situation. The concept is not as simple as it looks; forgiving yourself is the hardest forgiveness you’ll ever come across! It seems easier to punish yourself, to cut your vein, to hit yourself, to refrain from food, to keep yourself aloof but let’s see it in this way- if you actually want to punish yourself, forgive yourself! Josh Billings exclaimed- “There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.” And Oscar Wilde in his usual best self mentioned-“Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much.” The moment you truly forgive yourself, life becomes easier.

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend. ~William Blake

Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk. Forgiving seems almost unnatural. Our sense of fairness tells us people should pay for the wrong they do. But forgiving is love's power to break nature's rule. ~Lewis B. Smedes
Another difficult form of forgiveness is forgiving your near ones. An offence committed by your best friend seems unforgivable while the same offence can be forgiven had it been committed by an enemy! You can’t forgive your friend for misunderstanding you but you expect this from your enemy already! Your best friend never asked for this but you, yourself establish the difference and punish him/her like hell. You find it inevitable to shout on your mom if she stains one of your dresses but you tend to excuse your maid for the same. It doesn’t mean that the maid is more important, it just means that you don’t want to forgive your mom and you know she will listen to you and still not run away! You just take your near and dear ones for granted and this is nothing short of a dire mistake. Just remember any instance the person helped you...you will find all cases of selflessness for these people. Hence it doesn’t seem so difficult to forgive them anyway! Any mistake looks small in comparison to the love you hold for them!

Forgiveness, be it in any form is truly difficult, agreed. But, what good are you, how different are you is decided by how hard you forgive! The first and foremost, start forgiving from yourself...this is necessary since nobody else can forgive you till you forgive yourself. However wrong you do, just forgive yourself. It’s also human tendency but just make sure that you don’t repeat the mistake. It’s ok to forgive yourself after that!

Then come to forgiving loved ones. Doesn’t it seem fair to forgive them too when you can forgive anything you have done? Just let forgiveness flow through yourself. We normally stop the flow ourselves.

And then we come to forgiving our enemies. Know why you should forgive them? Because a bit of Gandhigiri doesn’t harm!!You just have to see the look on their face when you say “You are forgiven”. There will be no one more surprised than them and no one more content than you on earth!

“Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting” ~William Arthur Ward
“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future” ~Paul Boese

So, you see everyone can be forgiven. The reasons vary but forgiveness is for everyone! Keep in mind that the person who commits mistake suffers more than the person who faces the consequences of it. Forgiveness works wonderfully. Try it once and you will feel on the top of the world. It feels so good to become great for once in a lifetime! I was personally facing a crisis, and was not able to forgive. It took a lot of time but when I have finally forgiven, it feels like I am too strong and noblest in the world! So, go for it. Stop criticising people for the wrong they do to you and start saying “YOU ARE FORGIVEN” and see how it is received as a welcome relief. Experience how the world changes its perspective of you! Forget everything other than that every mistake is forgivable and that God forgives any and every offence if you repent for it. Take your own time but do it finally. FORGIVE AND FORGET. Come start forgiving and let happiness radiate from yourself!

When I started my literature study on forgiveness, I was amazed when I found a page in Wikipedia too. Wikipedia describes forgiveness as “A process of concluding resentment, indignation or anger as a result of a perceived offence, difference or mistake.” I will let you all through a wide range of materials you will find over forgiveness, if you google. So, let’s start the play with the first scene- the common misconceptions (Courtesy: http://www.catherineblountfdn.org/forgiveness.html)

The Top 10 Misconceptions about Forgiveness

1. Withholding forgiveness hurts the other person.
The truth is: withholding forgiveness hurts no one but you.
2. Forgiveness is a passive endeavour.
The truth is: Forgiveness is a very active endeavour, where you can ultimately reach out in love and compassion to the other person.
3. Forgiveness lets people off the hook, so they aren't accountable to their actions.
The truth is: Forgiveness and accountability are not the same topic. You can have both. Forgive another by offering empathy and unity; yet still uphold the process of accountability within the social structure. We have been sent not to keep an account of other’s doing....what is important is to keep playing our own roles in the play called ‘life’.
4. Forgiving someone tells that person that whatever he or she did was acceptable with you.
The truth is: Accepting their actions and accepting their true nature underneath it all are two very different things. You can make that clear.

5. Forgiveness is for the other person.
The truth is: Forgiving another is an act we do for ourselves, to free ourselves from the pain or bitterness.

6. When you are forgiving, you are "pardoning" someone's bad behaviour.
The truth is: There is no "pardoning," just a clearer perception on who that other person truly is, and what they can still provide to your life, to a community and to a society.
7. Forgiveness is done by saying the words "I forgive you."
The truth is: Forgiveness should reside not only in words but also in thought, feeling and action.
8. Forgiving another person doesn't do any good really.
The truth is: It not only uplifts you AND that person in ways unseen, but it brings that much more light to a world in need.
9. Forgiveness is only for religious people.
The truth is: It's for all of us walking the planet and more for the ones who are not religious. May be they see some light through the virtue!

10. It's too hard to forgive.
The truth is: It can be hard, but not too hard, not when you have the right support and perspective. Nothing is too hard when you are up to it!

After I saw the above misconceptions, it became easier for me to forgive. Make use of these! Let’s see what different religions have to say on forgiveness.....

HINDUISM: The concept of performing atonement from one's wrongdoing (Prayaschitta — Sanskrit: Penance), and asking for forgiveness is very much a part of the practice of Hinduism. Prayashitta is related to the law of Karma. Addressing Dhritarashtra, Vidura said: "There is one only defect in forgiving persons, and not another; that defect is that people take a forgiving person to be weak. That defect, however, should not be taken into consideration, for forgiveness is a great power. Forgiveness is a virtue of the weak, and an ornament of the strong.

ISLAM: Forgive thy servant seventy times a day.

CHRISTIANITY: Then Peter came up and said to him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times seven, but seventy times seven."

SIKHISM: Where there is forgiveness there is God himself.

BUDDHISM: Never is hate diminished by hatred: It is only diminished by love.

JAINISM: Kṣamāpanā or supreme forgiveness forms part of one of the ten characteristics of dharma.

JUDAISM: The most beautiful thing a man can do is to forgive wrong.

TAOISM: Recompense injury with kindness

If you still find it difficult to forgive, I have something for you. Take a look on the following link and feel blessed that you live in a world that has something called ‘FORGIVENESS’

http://gurmeetsingh.wordpress.com/2008/12/02/stories-of-forgiveness/

Go through the next link too, it’s an awesome video and made me respect you tube to the next level:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D4VMZb8wLY

Another food for soul is:

http://thelegacybuilder.wordpress.com/2010/01/31/scars-earned-along-the-path-of-forgiveness/

I hope you are now ready to forgive all harm ever done to you. I want to be honest with the readers, even I am still struggling to forgive someone from my school days but have not still been able to. But believe me; I am trying very hard for that now that I am preaching! Anyway, I have forgiven every other person and am happy to do so! I plead you to start forgiving and make the world a better place to live in because,

"Anger and rage against another person is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die."

2010-06-27T23:02:00.007+05:30

COMING UP.......

Hello friends!
It’s every 30 minutes on an average that I have visited my own blog since yesterday (!).

But to be honest, nothing seems impressive enough...I had always wanted my blog to be a place where I could post something useful to the community as a whole. So, here’s what I have decided...Under the heading “Pearls of wisdom”, I will write about some topic of general interest....something that you can feed your soul on!! So, watch out for the special feature from next post onwards.

Anyway, I will keep writing stuffs other than this special column also! As for now, I will leave a poster for you all with a meaning so deep that it will surely arouse enough faith in you to leave no room for doubts and worries!