2010

Another year gone..

Time flies and it flies really fast. This was very special year for me because it was full of thrills, mostly in form of surprises. Those were not welcome surprises. However, I'm happy that I am still alive. I am thankful to god : for life of one more year and for opportunity to write in new year. I don't remember when was the last time I wrote this public. It seems it's been long, long time. Maybe the reason is my laziness or it is lack of time. But I really missed that from time to time.

Life this year has been a roller coaster. Sometimes it was so high that it almost ruptured my lungs with joy. When it came down it was upside down, so painful that my heart beat almost stopped.....  then, it went up again. It was completely unpredictable, the twists and the turns..... I was just holding my breath and thinking  - what's next ? Of course, things were not in my hand. More, I tried to control them, more they went wrong.

Finally,  I stopped to worry about the next surprise and started to pray hard. The ride became joyful. Thus, I am thankful to god for keeping me alive and enjoy the ups and downs of this wonderful life. I believe in god and I believe in miracles. So, when I see my life ahead, it is merely a number 2010 to me, nothing more than that.

Happy New Year !!!

Life is short, Play hard, Pray hard... because miracles happen every day.

Get busy living or get busy dying

It's been long time, I haven't written anything for this blog. I thought about writing many times. However, I was busy running rat race in same old copy job.

There were times when I was having so much fun that I literally had no time. I miss those friends and those special moments, I miss singing songs loudly with them. I miss traveling 6km each day just for a cup of coffee. I miss watching late night TV. I miss playing computer games the whole night. I miss watching 30 movies a week. I miss roaming in rains. I miss pushing flat tire bike at 12am on jungle road that has not a single street light. I miss making fake telephone calls to my friends. Those were the happiest days of my life. They made my life a real heaven. Even after I started my job everyday was like a week-end, though I was working a lot. I really miss those days …………..

Now, I started to forget birthdates and anniversaries of friends and family. I forget them to say hello for days, months and years. I don’t know “Am I on the right track” Or “was it worth it”

Looking back I see myself as different person. A person who is running so fast that he sometimes forgets to breath or even smile. I don’t know whether I am getting busy living or I am getting busy dying. I started to follow just one rule –

“Get busy living or get busy dying”
                                              - Stephen King

I don’t know whether living is about finding an answer to same old question – If today were last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? Or is about taking your life the way it takes you. Certainly, I will choose the former one because may be answer to the question is way back to my old life. Thus, I will keep trying until my success defines the rule for me.

From every direction

Red, yellow and green, no matter what colour is it, all are same for us. You may think that I am talking about colours or Holi once again. It is sad that those are not the colours of Holi. There is an escape from colours of Holi. However, there is no escape from those three colours. Those are the colours of traffic signals, which I face everyday of my life. However, I am learning fast how to escape those three colours.

I think that our government is wasting too much money on innovations in traffic signals, using LED(s) to save energy and putting timers to save fuel. Government does not know that here in Pune, one of the most educated cities of India, we all are colour-blind. Thus, we do not follow those signals and so we do not need them. We rush from every direction no matter what is the colour.

Driving in Pune can be compared with driving in ‘well of death’, an Indian carnival show. There are no traffic rules. Footpaths are the best short cuts to avoid traffic. Even though there are lanes, one may always get some surprise packages from the opposite direction of the road. To add to this there are auto rickshaws that can take U-turns anytime and in any direction and PMT buses, the most famous devils on roads are driven by the most reckless drivers.
Sometimes I feel driving schools, to teach how to take easy shortcuts, makes a good business sense for the city. In fact I have already decided to name it after an animated series “The reckless driver” with the punch line ‘I can’t see a thing’.

Walking in Pune is as risky as driving cars or riding bikes. One may have to be very careful, because footpaths are also permitted roads for vehicles! When I was young, I learned in school to see right and then see left before crossing the roads. However, after coming to Pune, I realized how wrong those schools are. Schools in Pune need a special book having points such as: 

• Not only see left and right, but also see behind (Note – you may need one extra eye).
• Footpaths are as risky as roads (Note – Bikers pay taxes and are licensed to drive on footpaths too).
• You may need a helmet especially for walking.
• You can relax and walk when there is traffic Police (Note – vehicle owners may rush from any direction when there is no traffic Police) 

I used to feel that I am a very good rider / driver. However, I realised soon that I was the only one running thus I was always a winner. Driving / riding in village was like driving/ riding in heaven. It has not taken long to turn a winner of a village to loser of a city. However, I am happy that I am learning and may be one day, not today, not tomorrow, not this season, probably not the next season either but one day, I am gonna wake up and suddenly I’m gonna be like every other driver in every other city of India where rushing is everything and nothing else matters.

What is a real Holi?

Festival of colour, it had been long time since I played Holi, after all it played mostly when we are in schools or colleges. As we grow up the fever of Holi tends to decrease, the reasons being it takes long time to remove colours and chemical colours cause skin irritation. However, the festival is truly enjoyable if played in a proper manner i.e. with natural colours. I have seen many pictures from Rajasthan where many people play it together. Those pictures are awesome and colourful.

I am posting some pictures by Poras Chaudhary.

  

In 2010, I experience my first Holi with natural colours. I really felt like a 5 year old who sees only shade of colours and nothing else. Playing it with young kids was fun. They play it with entire heart – running, dancing, singing and some times putting colour on their own head. It is very difficult to recognize their faces in the herd. Those smile on colourful faces is worth a millions dollar. They shot ‘Holi hai’ all the week. It starts for them with water and balloons one week ahead of the actual day and ends after several weeks.

Morning 7 o‘clock, loud shout outside my house ‘Holi hai’ – ‘aaj to holi hai’. Young kids were shouting and waiting outside my house. I hate Holi mostly because of the chemical colours. However looking at those kids, I was unable to resist myself, thus I went to experience shades of colours. Red, yellow, blue and green, young Picasso, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci painted all my face. I was looking like one of those modern arts that no one can decode. They have thrown several buckets of colour over me. I haven’t played for too long, however it was most enjoyable moment of the year. Holi was on Monday, it has been almost a week but those kids still shout ‘Holi hai’! I mean that is what I call a real Holi.

What can we change?

Few days back, I was discussing with my friends that our Indian government is not doing anything. And we are confident that it may continue like this for many decades. But questions are –

What can we do for this? What can we change?

We are the change, we are our own government .We don’t need anyone to improve many things in our life. There are many things that can certainly be improved just by changing only our daily habits.

Let’s take an example: How many of us in India really use dustbins for throwing papers, chocolate wrappers etc.?
I think, not many and it’s a fact. Sometimes we neglect these small habits because of our laziness. I am not the exception. I have seen many people holding government responsible for not cleaning roads.

My question is – “do we really need government to keep roads clean?”

What if we all start to use dustbins? Do we need anyone for cleaning those already clean roads?

We have population of more than 1 billion. Thus, even a single tree grown by each of us can make a difference. It can at least solve our water and food problems because of inadequate rain.

There are few lessons that we should certainly learn. We must learn to co-operate. I believe that our government, which is itself divided, creates divide amongst people. For example, I have seen people here fighting for language. Language is just a means of communication. It doesn’t matter what we speak, unless person around can understand us. There are lots of people who can’t speak or hear, but they still can communicate very well without knowing any language.

So, “what are we going to ask a person who can’t speak? “

Same bullshit – “Speak in my local language otherwise I am not listening to you, you don’t have any right to live in this part of the world.”
I am not saying that we should not feel proud of our language, of course we should. However, we can not force anyone to speak any particular language.

It’s time to wake-up! Look around – our language is not the only language in India / world. “What we want to do?” learn nothing and die in the same part of the world fighting for languages. World is moving very fast, and we are fighting for language and religion; these are the reasons why India is lagging behind.

We must listen to our heart not to politicians – I am afraid such fights may some day divide India into pieces. Our progress is in progress of India, not just in progress of our local world. Young generation should come up and contribute towards growth of India.

One may argue with me that we are doing progress and our economy is doing really well. So, let me ask something – Have we done anything innovative in last decade? Why don’t we have electricity 24x7? Why don’t we have good public transports?

Excuse me, large population is not the right answer here; China is growing much faster than India, it has much better and cheaper public transport. It has much better infrastructure.

One of many reasons India is lagging behind in engineering and innovation is IT jobs (copy jobs). Consider any engineer: Mechanical, Electrical, Electronics, Instrumental, Civil and Aeronautical etc. all are choosing better paying IT or BPO jobs. No one wants to work for core fields. Not only engineers, but science graduates too don’t want to work in their respective fields. All are running in a rat race. It is certainly creating shortage of talent in other areas.

What is use of learning in core fields?

I may sound foolish to many. However, I prefer to stay foolish for everyone running in a rat race. It will take lot of time for people to understand.

I feel really proud that I know – I am the change.

What is our real profession?

“Yes”, I am also a part of rat race, the race in which everyone is running to achieve more and more, the race in which everyone is running so fast that they forget they are running on an illusionary path that has no end.

Few days back, 8 AM I got a call from one of my very good friends, He said,” It’s my birthday today; please make sure that you are available this evening”. I said, “I am extremely sorry, today evening it’s not possible dude, I have lot of work to finish”. I felt sorry because I missed his birthday party and because I even forgot his birthday.

We all are running behind the cheese that is already in our pockets. But in the whole process we forget our actual goals and start to chase that same bitter cheese. No way are we happy running and leaving our friends and family behind. We go on running all our lives and when we grow up, one day we suddenly realize that we had everything that we need but we did nothing that we want.

What is use of the job that stays in our mind even though we are at home with our family? We have made many sacrifices in our personal lives to make our future bright, but will that future ever come and let us quite the rat race?

It is easy to change our job and grab missed opportunities, but it is not easy to get back special moments from our life:
What about best friend’s wedding that we missed?
What about birthdays that we missed?
What about our hobbies and personal interests?

What about our real self? – One day we will miss our real self too.

We think about our work all day and night. Is it really worth spending so much time and getting only dissatisfaction in return? Even thought we are satisfied with our work, what is use of such satisfaction? After all even a highly paid slave is still a slave, who has sold his soul to master money.

I was satisfied with my job, but when I asked few question to myself such as – “Are we doing anything innovative? Are we adding values to society?”

I realized that I am not doing anything innovative, because I am making copy of an already existing copy. Thus, I call it a Copy job. I am sorry to say but IT job to me is a copy job. It is far below my capabilities, and I am only running behind illusionary cheese.

I don’t mean we should leave our job and stay home, however we can at least think of job as a means only to pay our bills. We can at least try to make our personal life as our real profession. We can try to work after office towards our dream and goals. We can spend time to enjoy with our friends and family.

Organization was running before we joined, and it will continue to run after we leave, no one will remember our names. I still remember what my last manager told “Work in office only for rating 3 and work in your life after office for rating 1”. He was right.

We can achieve much more than we think by following our heart and working for our dreams, our passion, and our real goal. There is much more satisfaction in working for ourselves than running in rat race.

It is not how much we know about the world, but how much we know about our self.

It took me several years to realize this simple answer, and I am happy that at least I am trying to get out of the rat race.

Social networking or show off?

Social networking sites are growing and becoming integral part of our daily life, it’s very cost effective means to stay connected with friends, family and colleagues. I am not a frequent internet user, but I get updates of many friends at the same time and at the same place with just few clicks. Thus, I am happy that it has made our lives much easier.

Definitely, everyone is happy, from users to companies. Many companies have started their own social networking sites. It has become a big source of money market, where they can put several ads and earn a lot.

What about the growing number of social networking sites?

I am fed up maintaining my profile on many different sites; just one or two sites are enough for me. Yet, each day my mail box is full of invitations from many different unknown sites. In fact sometimes it gets difficult because not all our friends are at the same place. Thus, finally we have to join some new site and risk our privacy – ‘Yes’ example is Facebook, last month it has made profiles of many users ‘public’ by default.

No way I want public to know my personal information. We see many unknown visitors visiting our profiles and sending friends request. We try to search friends using our e-mail address, but invitations are sent to all people listed in our address book. Sometimes we face embracement – I still remember an invitation of my friend that was sent to all his mailing list, which includes some people from higher management at our work place.

I believe social networking has become more than just a social network; it has grown as a means to “show off”. I may sound harsh to many, but it’s the fact. Everyone on network is only bother about increasing the number of friends, messages (scraps, tweets or whatever) and comments on photos or profile status. We go on putting lots of personal photos to get more and more comments. It’s just a means to show off (new cars, bikes, houses, onsite trips and even wives, girlfriends or husbands). Many sites have started the online gaming on their sites; people go on playing like a crazy to show off their maximum points to others and forget the actual purpose. I am not pointing towards anyone, and I am not an exception.

I still believe it can never match quality time spend with our friends in a restaurant, over a cup of tea or even chit chat on phone. In fact, chat messengers are many times better than social networking sites to stay in touch with our friends.

We think we are connected with many, but we are living in a fake social networking world. We go on adding many friends to our show off network, and our contacts grow in quantity but not in quality.

Do I need a punch line?

Do I really need my own punch line to be successful? – This question is bothering me again and again these days. Many of those who are successful have their own punch line, so I though to create my own.

It started few days back, when I read a commencement address by Steve Jobs at Stanford University. Steve used in his speech a punch line from 'The Whole Earth Catalog' –

"Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish"

It was a life changing line for me. Since that day each day I wake up in the morning and ask myself -
“If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today” this is exactly same line that Steve used in his speech and my answer has always been same as his "No". This line starts to revolve in my mind the moment I start to think about my future.

I am still trying to figure out the exact meaning of the line 'Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish'. However, I elaborated my own meaning.
Stay Hungry - meaning is straight forward, keep looking for what you love, until you find one for yourself. It is more important in life to do what you love than doing things, which are meaningless to you and your life.
Stay Foolish – It’s a controversial part as far as I think, each of us may elaborate it in a different way. Take an example here - if someone try to work really hard to top the exam many people start to talk that he is foolish, because he is restless, he is working more than he should and he is wasting his time in books, however he choose to stay foolish, no matter what. He is determined to achieve what he really loves, no matter how foolish he may seems to others.

This post may sound foolish to many of you, but this is what I really don’t bother about. As Steve said in his speech -

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice and most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

I believe that ‘if you are successful, everyone would praise you’ this is from what I got my punch line –
“Success defines the rule”

I believe my punch line will be as successful as I would be in my life. My success will define rules for me as well as for my punch line. Therefore, success defines the rule for one and all.

Won’t you try before you die?

“Yes”, I know it’s one more boring question, few and only readers of this blog are utterly bereft (unhappy) of my posts. However, this post is a bit different, in that to make it interesting I am trying to write a fiction story.

I still don’t know what I am going to write. There was only one question in my mind –

“Won’t you try before you die?”

I said, “Yes, It’s worth trying. It’s worth following our heart. It’s worth staying foolish.”

Some super brain may argue with me “Why I said follow our heart?” ‘It’s our brain not our heart that shows us a right path, the path that has been tested for many years by many super brains, the path that has all calculated risks, and finally, it’s our brain that controls the heart.’

I would say, “I am not here to start a debate, and I am not here to write a science theory. I am just following my heart.”

So, let’s see how much heart I can put into this small story.

Somewhere in India.

Three brothers – Agni, Jal and Vaayu (Fire, Water and Wind), as many Indian kids they were exactly opposite of what their names suggest. Agni was afraid of Fire, Jal of water and Vaayu of wind.

All three of them were found dead at a school annual day function. But everyone in the country was talking about those special kids. The story of young brothers was known to everyone in the world. All three of them were awarded ‘bravery award’, because they died saving lives of school kids.

There were many unanswered questions in my mind. I was not at all convince with the story published by media. There was not a single statement from eyewitnesses ‘How is it possible in India, the country where even a small road side bicycle accident gets a media coverage in which funny stories from eyewitnesses are repeated again and again?’ ‘Why there is not a single report about the cause of fire and why is media restricted to talk to doctors, teachers and other school staffs?’

I was restless and unable to sleep, I was thinking repeatedly about those special kids. I have always been selfish. Thus, I decided to meet the mother of those kids and get the background story.

I started my journey early morning, the place was 300 Km from my town (of course address of those kids was very well know). Bad roads and slow public transport took me to that place in 8 hrs. I was frustrated and tired. I went straight away to a tea stall; I asked for a tea, there were some people talking about those kids. Same old story, I was not at interested in listening to them.

Tea was excellent, it was worth traveling 300 km for that.

I went to an owner of the shop and asked “how much for the tea?” Suddenly he started to say “Those bastards don’t have any other topic to talk about, what about the mother of those kids?”

Suddenly I realized, I was about to do a mistake, I was there for the same story. What about the mother of those kids? It’s not the right time to talk with her.

I asked the owner “You know their mother?”

The owner said, “I know the kids as well as their mother from many years, those kids saved life of my daughter, those kids were really gifted! and what people are talking is all bullshit.”

I asked, ‘So you know the story?’

‘Unfortunately, yes’ he answered.

‘I am here, 300 kms from my home for the same story, I am not a journalist or a writer, but I am interested in that story. At least I want to know what was so special about those kids.’

‘They never listened to their heart, that’s what special about those kids. See Mr. I don’t have time to waste, let me do my work.’ The owner said.

I had no clue what that man was talking about; It was an alien language for me. After several minutes of discussion, I was finally able to convince that man to at least tell me what he meant by “they never listened to their heart”

He said ‘I won’t tell you the real story, but I can answer your question with another story ’

I was completely shocked. ‘Another story!’

He started to tell me a story in his typical voice ‘Once there was a girl, there was nothing special about her, she was normal human as me and my daughter!’

I thought ‘So, I am not a normal human for that man!’

‘One day that girl was playing with a matchbox, suddenly her mother came around and asked her not ever to play with fire, because it may hurt. So she never tried to touch the fire, One day she died in an accident and her body was taken to Hindu holly place where dead bodies are cremated. Everyone was shocked! When they saw that girl was really special, she was gifted with a special skin, which doesn’t catches fire! She never listened to her heart and thus her special power went unused.’

“What about those kids uncle? They too got that special skin”, I asked

“No, Agni got a special skin that doesn’t catch fire, Jal was able to walk on water and Vaayu was able to change the direction of wind.” said the owner.

Suddenly, I remembered the floor diagram of the school building that was shown on TV. As per news reports many kids escaped from the back door that opens towards a big swimming pool inside gym. It is still not known how kids managed to open that door from inside because there was only one way from side of the swimming pool to reach that door, and that way was the surrounded by fire.

At this point please imagine your own story and try to write it.

My story:
Jal might have crossed the swimming pool and opened the door, Agni might have helped some kids to get inside the gym. Vaayu might have changed the direction of the wind towards windows to make the path clear for kids to escape from back door. The brothers died with remaining kids because of heart choke up; there was too much smoke in the building. They could have done even better and saved many other lives with their own, but they never tried before, they were not aware of super powers and limitations to those powers before that incidence.

The End

I was only trying to convey a simple message –

‘Try before you die’

Try and fail, rather than regretting at the end.

I am not asking anyone around to ‘Jump from the cliff to know whether you can fly’ ‘Jump into fire to know whether you got a special skin.’

At least you can take a matchstick and check; at least you can jump from 5 feet and check. I promise you won’t regret it.

Fire may have burned fingers of many, so it is obvious for people to say, “Don’t play with fire!” but what if you are really special! How would you know it?

Everyone is a special – So, if you have an idea, if you have a plan – don’t listen to anyone and follow your heart, because your heart never listens to others and it is only affected by your own voice.

I got a plan, many people told me that I would never be successful because many have failed. They have many examples of people who did exactly the same and failed.

However, I believe that staying foolish is the best way one can achieve his/her goals.

“Thus, I want to try before I die”, and I know I won’t regret it.