Amore Forever

There are memories of our lives which have got rusty and some of those memories include the times when we either had a deep crush or maybe fell in love for the first time and then life had a different reason for us to continue and be with someone else maybe. But those past memories that still linger in our thoughts and sometimes some occurence in the present triggers those memories of the past and brings a smile without any regrets. Can you remember them?

Remember the time when you had that first crush, more times than none its when you stepped into school for the first time and would have been between the 1st and 4th class/standard/grade. The time when the look of her would make your heart beat like a speeding train. Her one smile would make you go into a dream of your own. Her presence would light up your day, her voice would make you the feel a renewed energy but the times were different and we were not in a position to express our love to her. She was completely obsolete to the fact that you were there and existent for the so called love you had for her. Your friends would say that girls are not the friends you should be having but your heart wanted to go the other way and for some reason she never came to be in your life. And then life went to another phase, the crushes season started to fade out and there was no one like her to move you the way she did for sometime.

Then came your first LOVE, oh that feeling. Thats it, She is it! The thoughts of being with her and times shared with her. Holding her hand and walking for hours. Speaking on the phone till the wee hours of morning, never knowing what you spoke through the night but it was just a conversation that would make you feel satisfied. Her voice was enough to keep you alive. The small picture of her smile that would remain in your purse which had less money and more unwanted papers to make it look big. The mind was engrossed into a dream of love and enchantment, the first few months are spent with each others smiles, the movies, walks in the parks, bike rides/ drives in the evenings, coffee shop rendezvous all seemed like time was flying by and the need of more time to spend with each other. Then on parting you would reach home and like a super spy hide from your parents, call her and speak to her. And start speaking again till the time the eyes do not wish the night away. Sleep is the last thing on your mind, food doesnt taste the same without her by your side. The morning is lifted with the joy that you will be spending another day with her and she will be by yourside in college cuddled by yourside. Then comes the first time your lips touched hers and the shock was felt till the bottom of your spine but you didnt want her to know how much of feeling was there in you as you were the man. But your smile told her a different story and she reciprocated the same affection to you. The warmth of her hand on yours and the kiss made the reasons for everything complete. She was it!

The next step to completing a love saga is to tie the knot and the grave step of speaking to the parents and getting their consent or blessings in our world so that the love is turned to official marriage. Now not everyone's first love ends up with the one that they thought they were destined to be with. Our society has its own rules and the logic of each individual is quite different for everyone. I got to witness the break up of many individuals that had a story of depression and sadness but this didnt last long for them as there is always as silver lining in a dark cloud, right!

So starts another love story and it is again one of happiness and the love is blossoming in the mind with a renewed interest. Thats it, she is the one! You met her either in your work place or through some introduction at a party of a common friend or you tried to pick her up at a party and she was impressed by your line. You both share a common interest that makes you like things and do things which are common to each other. And since you are in the same work place the communication is so much more often and there is so much time shared with each other. You get to know her flaws and strengths, her flaws are pushed under the rug and you can only see her strengths. Oh the love, oh the romance! Its beautiful. She gets you to the top of the world and there is no space for a new person in your life. Your friends take second stage, their calls are always answered with excuses that you have to spend time with her or that she doesnt like you drinking and smoking so you have decided to quit. But when you are not with her all the excuses are forgotten and the smokes and drinks are enjoyed without her knowledge but in your fulfillment.

The maturity of age, relation, etc. brings us to the old hurdle of taking this relation to the next step, MARRIAGE. Parents are yet again involved in the process but this time the mind is strong to get them convinced into agreeing to this relation. You put your foot down and make them agree to your will or you walk out of the house. Now here there are different versions. Guy walks out of the house and gets married to the girl or Guy and girl walk out of their respective houses and get married in the court with the help of some of their friends or girl walks out of the house and gets married to the guy or both the sides agree to relation and there is a rocking party where we all are invited to share in the celebrations and ofcourse get drunk!

Now starts the next phase of the relation which most of the movies in our country do not show case. The part where the love starts to die and reality begins to kick in, the part which has logic and reasoning written all over, the same logic and reasoning that failed to exist when the love was blossoming in the head when the world was obsolete to you in her presence and vice-versa. Thats where the love suddenly vanishes and reality hits us. Shit! I got married!

The innocent Smile!

I was sitting at a park recently and just whiling my time away. As I sat there looking into the oblivion I noticed a family with two children making a nice place for them to sit at. The children would not have been more than 5 years of age with the younger one just learning how to walk. For ease of reading lets name the elder one John and the younger one Jai. Now John had the excitement of a young puppy let loose and was running around like he was being chased or was chasing some unknown being that didn’t exist and his father kept shouting to be careful but invain. John kept falling and tumbling and trying to kick in the air and jump up and down like a rabbit but there was a some kind of joy in what he was doing that a few others were getting irritated with it but he just continued it. Now seeing all this happen Jai was getting tempted to imitate his brother and be like him. Unfortunately, for him he could barely walk and with a step or two would be kissing the grass with his fall but yet he was determined to be like his brother and would get up and try again. It was such a pleasure to watch these two kids playing by themselves and having the time of their lives with nothing but their feet and imagination to keep them company while they made their way through the park running dancing jumping.

The smile of a child is worth a million lifetimes. Notice when a parent is playing with their child and there is complete happiness in the eyes of the child. The child is not bothered of who is around him and how it is going to reflect on him as a person. All that matter is he/ she is with their parents and there is no one else to matter about. He is so absorbed with his parent that he will jump, somersault and make a complete fool of himself for no one to notice. The funny thing is that he is just being himself and there is no one who can change the way he is thinking for that moment. He is the king of all that he does and the ruler of the happiness that exists. His jokes are for him to laugh at and maybe his parents to smile with him and share that moment of happiness with him.

Try making a child smile and you find out that it is quite easy; all you have to do is gain their trust and make a smile at them to reciprocate it to you. There is nothing scientific or logical at it. Have you ever noticed that when there is a conversation going on and a child is noticing the adults speaking and if they are all in a continuous laughter the child also unknowingly begins to laugh without understanding what is the main reason for the group to laugh or what the joke was about. He just wants to join the laughter. His smile gets people smiling so much more than any standup comedian.

Even if you have not been blessed with a child, to be with a child and bring a heartfelt smile on his face is worth more than a trip to an exotic location or materialistic gains that you can afford. I yearn to be with and play with my nephews whenever I can irrespective of if they feel the same or not. I would love to be a part of their lives and the smiles that they have for all. The times when they come to me and ask for something that I can give them is not only a matter of pride for me or a matter of pride to fulfill their needs. It’s the matter of a smile!

The Rise and Fall

It is a learning for one who is on a high and then suddenly falls flat on his face when life hits him below the belt. There was time when I was on top of the world and had all the pleasures of life that I could get and today a year later, I am living a life of begging and borrowing. For a person who would never take money from anyone even in the worst circumstances is today living off his parents.
About 9 months ago, I had a decent job and the pay was good. I had all the pleasures of partying friends to enjoy with and the time of my life in partying anywhere I wanted. Today I have to think if I can have a vada pav or a pani puri as the financial situation has dipped to rock bottom levels. Then there is the peer pressure of doing good and being looked down on. My ego and pride have taken such a bad beating that there is no place for it to exist anymore.
In a way it was good as the true friendship and the actual friends came to light when mis-fortune struck me. There was a moment when I need friends the most and only a few turned up to share their shoulder for my heavy head and all the so called best friends who proclaimed their friendship when I was on a high in life suddenly started to disappear. It was a realization also on the career front where the bosses who pledged their support suddenly had their heads turned and phones on a busy mode as they were too busy with their work and didn’t have the time to speak. Unlike, the time when they were always calling on you to get the work done and there was no problems in their midst because you had taken that extra time off the weekend to come to the office and do the damage control that they had initiated while they enjoyed the weekend on a picnic with their family.
Suddenly, life had a new meaning as to why I was there in this world and why I was, the way I was all this time to be the person who I was and how I could manage to be a better person. Suddenly, the question of mortality arose and the faith that life had built around started to crumble. There was a question on the way that I was leading my life and what was happening? What is our purpose in life and what is it that we are here on this planet for? The beliefs and the blindness in trust were questioned and the thought process of a philosopher started to take birth.
I cannot imagine why the way things happened when it happened. Why was I in the worst of situations and not in the best of places unlike my colleagues and classmates? Nevertheless, the simple answer to all this is that everyone has a time to go through some pain before they have their fruits of success touched and enjoyed. Thinking back in life I cannot remember a time when I was in any real trouble and how I single handedly managed to get out of it. This was my test of patience and maturity. A realization that the decisions taken in the past and the risks tried for a time was not paying off and the ways of the past would need to change if I were to be a materialistic success in life. It was time to reassess myself and change the process that I assumed would have been the right path as it clearly has not worked out for me.
If anyone would ask me what was it that they did wrong and how they could correct it, with respect to their careers, I would give them a simple answer. Do everything that you would never have done in the past and that would be the correct way. It is time to try something new and it’s an opportunity that you have in front of you that you need to grab make the best use of else you will be in the same position that you are in now and there will be no change. Because before you leap you always bend downwards and then reach for the sky. This was definitely going to be the leap for those fallen as it is going to be for me!

Faith

Faith is such an important part of our life. We are born with nothing but a notion of it and then through the teachings from our parents and elders we are made to believe in the first form of faith, namely religion.


Faith has become to be the main link to the happiness and sadness in a person's life. His/her faith in a job, a partner, a friend or a relative constitutes his trust and dependancy on the person. There is a lot that we get to learn from FAITH but what we forget is its authenticity and tend to behave in the way that the other would like us to behave. There would have been instances in each of our pasts where our hearts would have wanted something different but our FAITH in something or someone held us back from either getting it or doing it.

Lets ponder on what does faith actually mean? Is it a form of religion or is it the trust factor that one has for some one or something or is it the existence of an unknown force that will help us in the times of our needs? According to the websters dictionary faith means:

Faith
Noun
1. A strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny; "he lost his faith but not his morality".
2. Complete confidence in a person or plan etc; "he cherished the faith of a good woman"; "the doctor-patient relationship is based on trust".
3. Institution to express belief in a divine power; "he was raised in the Baptist religion"; "a member of his own faith contradicted him".
4. Loyalty or allegiance to a cause or a person; "keep the faith"; "they broke faith with their investors".

So we know we have a good understanding of what faith means but then why is it that we doubt our faith at times and we are not sure. Let me site an example on this for better understanding. Recently, I was visiting some of college friends in Delhi and I was introduced to his son who was about a year old. Since I was spending a few days with them I befriended the little boy, he had the need to taste and have anything that another person was drinking and on a night when I was sharing the evening with a group of friends and when no one was looking I offered him a few sips off my cocktail which tasted sweet to him. I realised then that this child had no clue what was there in the glass with some colourful liquid in it but that he had some sub-conscious faith in me that I wouldn't be able to harm him in any manner by offering him a drink. Obviously, what followed was a shrieking mother and a very happy child who danced the night away.

The point being is that we have faith in people that can be broken at times but these are living beings who have a mind of their own. How can we actually have faith in the unknown the and created from that the existence of a GOD. The eternal creator of all the starts, moon, planets, water, air, etc etc. I am putting forth this question to all the believers and faithful what is this faith in the unknown? The belief and ego that each faith is better than the other or that there is only a single path in the name of religion that is the main cause of hate and enemity between communities and people across the globe. I am questioning all those people who are not stopping this from happen and not those psychopaths who are doing it in the name of religion.

I think the people who are not stopping this from happening are more responsible for the hate development and promotion that those who are blindly following a leader blinded my ego and greed of power. Faith in god and the creator has been abolished and now comes a form of new faith, faith of a human being and his/her interpretation of what is right and wrong. There is such a fog of thought over what is right and wrong and how we can never have a solid differentiator between it. Faith is no longer existent in this world and not in the people who preach it for sure. There is no single religion to be cornered out here but all of them. Faith has become so commercial that any religious celebration has a political or business backing to it for profits and benefits. Where was the time when this country was proud of all the faiths that existed and harmony was never a difficulty. Today India is the epicenter for most of the religious outbreaks thanks to our diverse heritage and democracy that we have.

When are we going to learn that unity in diversity is the only way forward and not the british Mantra of division in equality! Knowledge is not helping the benefits of the learned to be more calm and think towards peace. There should be an answer and I do not have it!

Humility in India

Humility is never felt until we actually have had the opportunity to introspect our lives for understanding the wrongs and the rights. Success normally, doesnt help realise this feeling and we do tend to get arrogant and self-absorbed with ourselves. On the other hand, there is a deep need of humilty among us. Why?

Well, lets understand the need of humility and how it helps. A humble person would respect the feelings of others and share the emotion on a one to one basis. He/she is always an understanding and caring person. He/She would make an attempt to give back to the community and support their growth thus supporting a chain of success ratios in the region he/she is residing in. The urgent need of humility in our society is when there are caste, creed, gender and religious biase happening around us. The need of humility is needed when we sit in a comfortable restaurant have have a sumptuous meal while on the other side of the road sits a child with just a morself of food to take the day through. The need of humility arises when we sit in properly ventilated class rooms with mordern amenities to help us learn the knowledge of the land while a student in a village has to walk 4 kms to reach his/her school and gets little or no updated knowledge of whats happening in the world today. The need of humility is now and not tommorrow.

While most of us would feel that one who is caring is the one who is always hurt but thats only because we have this need of the other person to be humble as well and more times than one there is always someone on the opposite side who has not had the opportunity of being touched with humilty. He/she is the one who has either tasted success and is a constant winner or is just living in a dream that he/she can do everything on his/her own without anyone's help or assistance and cannot associate with a person who is not as privileged as he/she is.

Take for example a rags to riches person. He/she will definitely associate with the common man and why wouldnt he/she? He/She came from the same community that the common man lived in but he/she doesnt. In the wake of success and materialistic gains he/she forgets the roots that actually gave him/her the will and the desire of achieving the materialistic pleasures of life and in the bargain he/she forgets to give back to the place. Thus leaving his/her past as a reflection of his memory and nothing more! The most plain example are our politicians.

On the other hand, think of a person who was born with all the riches in life and then suddenly one day due to some unforseen calamity looses part or everything in life and is suddenly struck with a failure that might cripple him/her for life. He/She is suddenly faced with the most daring part in hir/her life to start from scratch and start working up all over again. In the journey he/she learns the basics of humilty and when he/she does rise like a phoenix(which most invariably do) there is a very good chance that he/she will be appreciated not only by the people around them but also by themselves. Self gratification of the human soul!!! Some cases in example have not exactly tasted failure but have not forgotten their past either. The infosys story of helping the poor and the needy to grow in contrast to most other corporates in Indian big wigs who share nothing but air with their fellow people.

We compare ourselves to the super powers in the west and have a knack of copying most of their political lyrics and jargons to suit our own fancies. Why cant we try and copy their other ways of bettering their societies? They have made sure that health and education is available to all their children(some exceptions are there in the western states). Our children need the love and grace of most of us and we owe it to the country to grow and be the next super power in the world.

But this can only happen when each of us share the humility of loving and caring for the other person sitting beside you on a train or a bus or in a flight. Respect the other for who they are and not for who you want them to be. This my friends is the true success in life. When you learn to appreciate yourself and others in the humbleness of the being and not in the superiority of the ego!

11/7, 26/11 - A Powerful Thought with Action

It will be the first anniversary of the 26/11 blasts in Mumbai which rocked the country but are we really disturbed in the country with regards to security? There was such a hue and cry of the security last year that thousands gathered at Gateway of India to commemorate the death of the soldiers and the destruction of peace in a place like Mumbai. The city saw the same clamity in 2006 on 11/7 as well when the trains in the suburbs of Mumbai were bombarded and the loss of lives much greater than that at 26/11. Nothing was done to improve security in the city or the country anymore than what is being done to now. There were so many attacks in each part of this country and our elected supremos are sitting comfortably in their seats without doing anything for the people who got them there. I was discussing with a friend recently of the lack of security and the laid back attitude of people in India as compared to the USA. How the USA made the changes in its security programs and re-grouped with a will to protect its nation from the cockroaches of terror. What I failed to understand was what are we as Indians going to do to make a change to the society that we live in? When is our security going to be more important that the political and bureaucrats? Who is going to stand up to the corrupt politicians and the self indulgent bureaucrats and make them realise that we pay the taxes for our security and not only theirs? Or should we take the easy route of migrating from this country and contributing to the betterment of another society? I have been watching the various talk shows on television and am really surprised at some of the discussions that persist. There are ideas that can change the face of the security in this nation and how we as the proud citizens of India can be safe when travelling anywhere in this country. But at the end of the day thats all that we are capable of doing. We are all talk and no action. How can we stop the brain drain in our society in terms of quality professionals and good governance? I am trying to point out that we had a terrorist attack on our country by foreign players and we need to protect ourselves from such instances in the future. But we need to understand the cause of such occurrences and the instances that will lead to the day that we will have to kiss our loved ones good bye as if every day was the last of our lives. When are we going to recognise the internal terrorists and start our JIHAD against them. There are thousands of farmers committing suicide, thousands of children not getting proper places to stay or food to eat; illiteracy and diseases. So many problems that this one article would be insufficient to make a note of it. When are we going to terminate these Corrupt Internal Terrorists(CIT)? There are so many reasons for us to be proud of our country but when we hear that a leader elected to serve us has embezzeled us for more than Rs.4,000 Crore!!! Is not that enough to remove most of the farmers in debt? Provide shelter, food and education to atleast a million or more children. And then we also have the political leaders helping rejuvenate the East India Company's policy of divide and rule, with Hindu against Muslim, Hindu against Christian, Maharashtrians Vs Indians, etc, etc. Why are we waiting for something to happen? When are we going to realise that there is more to giving and than receiving? To all my debates on how to improve this country I was asked this question, "Who is going to bell the cat?" Who will take the responsibility of having the CITs punished for their crimes? I realised that I wouldnt be the one. WHY? Because I have spent so much of time in my education and would like to lead a decent lifestyle. Buy a house someday, then a luxury car, send my children for an expensive education and then lay down to rest after working my life away. That is the cycle of life for all of us and why should we bother otherwise. The most important part of it all, is that although I have the idea of a better India, I do not have the will to initiate the change and fight the all powerful and mighty CITs. We as a nation have been used to being oppressed and ruled over by foreigners for centuries. But now we are being suppressed by the very people who we have chosen to leads us into a path of success and peace. These very people are the cause of the doom of the country that once was our pride but slowly becoming our shame. But this has to change else we will be like one of the African states in complete chaos; ruled and haunted by terror. It is time we stop watching things pass us by and not turn a blind eye to the CITs. It is time we start to make things happen rather than wait for it to happen. It is time for us to take a stand and be proud of the nation that gave us life and a name to go by. It is time for us to be Indians!!!

College Vs Work

The days of college are never forgotten. But the irony was that when we were in college we couldnt wait to start working and earning a living and now that we are in the working environment we yearn for the days of the college. Why is it that we yearn for the college days?

Those were the times when friends were friends, when help was always round the corner. There was never a time when someone would try to make the day bad for you unless you were in some wrong group. The times when we were short of cash and borrowed some to have that extra drink or smoke at night with the gang. The times when because of the limited amount of resources, we would share a single cigarette among 8 of us or if we couldn't afford cigarettes we would graduate to a biddi or two. It was a time of glorious fun and time of forgetting the worries. And now, there is no time for the same friends to keep in touch. The splurging of money to show their peers how well they are doing in life with the cars and houses that they buy. The jealousy among the same friends who would once share clothes because they didnt have enough money to wash them or that they looked good on the other. The other colleague in the office who is eyeing your job and wants to show off to prove you wrong. The boss who is scared if he/ she promotes you his/her job will be at stake. The constant politics and games played at the work place!!

Classes were made to bunk or sleep in, rarely did anyone actually pay attention to a lecture and the tutors were always worried what would happen to the people after they graduated. Exams were something of no worries, a last minute study and the chits made to make sure that if someone doesnt know the answer we pass it on to the other and share the marks and the answer sheets. And now, the office is filled with people who are rooting for your doom. Help is in the form of crushing you and getting into your seat, there is no trust or belief in the other person next to you. The same competition that made good friends in college is now making you a enemy of the colleague you work in with greed, envy and jealousy being a part of the relation shared.

College was a time of no complications. There was always the girl/boy who you liked and the first time proposal that you planned on making but were scared to approach. The first time you said the three words and the world was bouncing all around you. The sheer joy and ecstacy of holding the others hand and going for a walk or a movie or sharing a sandwich at the college canteen. If you proposed a girl/boy the answer would either be a yes or no and a very simple no thank you or a yes. But now after college you want to get married and there are a thousand questions that have to be answered. Is he/she from the same community, what caste, creed or religion is he/she from? What do his/her parents do? where are his/her siblings? blah blah blah blah.... the complications of a simple relation.... not only is the start of the relation so difficult the complications of the wedding day and the rituals to followed, the wants of both the sides of the family and the relatives. And then the marriage starts with the wants and expectation of both the girl and the boy changing and the COMPROMISE and ADJUSTMENTS start for both the sides!

Where was the simple and easy life when college was on in comparison to what life is now treating us with? I sometimes wonder if this need of envy, jealousy and greed of materialism would get us anywhere at any time. There are so many things out there for us to enjoy but the green monkey is always on our back to remind us of its importance and how we cannot live without it!!!

This is the irony and the symphony of life. So its addios to the wonderful college life and hello to a life in the rat race. In a way we have become rats in life as well!!!

The Bursting Bubble

Its not a difficult situation these days when one is faced with a question, What the hell is happening with my life? Recession has affected a few in India, the job in which we loved to serve has become a living hell as the option of a change is not available to the masses. There is a strangulation of choices and we are no longer into the same comfort of a job that we would like to do than the need of having a regular deposit of an increasing bank balance.

I have been among the few unprivileged persons who had not been lucky with saving his job and there are a few like me out there in the market waiting for the "Right" job to strike a deal with me to start on earning again. But the deal doesn't seem to happen as either I am too experienced for the profile or I do not fit the profile. The best excuse I heard from the person is that since I have not been employed in the past months hence I do not fit the bill. The irony of it is that if no one would want to open their doors then how would I be able to cross into the thresh-hold of a career.

This helped the little cells in my head known as the grey cells to function and helped me start my own business. A SOHO(Small Office Home Office), I started operations from my place of residence and started more of freelancing jobs to help more larger corporations in achieving their targets. Well it seemed it a dream run for a period of 3 months, and then the burst. I had not registered myself as an organisation and with no actual clients coming into a picture of success the dream of business was shattered. The financial meltdown in my own financial capital namely my bank balance was crying for help and there was no one to come to my aid.

However, when there is drought there is bound to be rains soon and with it came the need of a job with a company as a marketing intern and although, it was a base job. It was nevertheless a job, so I was just happy to be in one and no pride or ego remained of being a senior in an organisation. It was time to start blowing the bubble again so that it doesnt burst too soon and learn from the mistakes created in the past. 

Just waiting for the Bubble again!!!!