Nobody Is Perfect

          One of the things that differentiates United States from India is that you have wide variety of options to choose from, even if you want to buy yogurt. You have plain, flavored, not-fat and the normal ones, needless to mention that there are legion of flavors to choose from. I wondered how many can go for flavored as opposed to the plain yogurt. But then I thought that there are people who like it, who just want to try it, who tempt kids to have it by bribing with his/her favorite flavor and so on. Isn't it possible to manage without those kind of options like we do it back home!? Then I realized that even we have flavored lassi.

          In a world composed of people with different IQ, EQ and SQ how do you make friends that are very near to our heart ? How do you find people that we love beyond words can express ? Sometimes, we even have reason(s) to not like people if not hate them. How does it happen ? May be we like something  or few things in a person and decide that rest doesn't matter. Or even conclude otherwise. It is as if our brain is executing a well-defined and structured algorithm giving an output that dictates our action. All this happens without our knowledge.

          We come across new people every day. Few stick with us forever, few for not so long and few don't. this is not a criterion to decide whether a person is good or bad because there really isn't a good or a bad person and all that we think is relative. Really, nobody is good or bad but one might jump to that conclusion keeping him as a threshold. When this is the case, how justified is it to judge or comment on others ? Also I feel it is despicable to transfer the baggage of judgement, on someone or something, to others that might actually love those traits. I said judging is bad but are we allowed to have an opinion on others ? If yes, can we impose it on others ? Well, I will leave let you think about this.

          There is a fine line between opinion and judgement. My point is that I have no right to judge anyone and even if I do it is imperative to keep it to myself. I should work on changing my opinion about that someone. If successful I will have a friend for life and if not I will just move on without passing further judgement. I might say having assorted choices of yogurt is a little overboard but before declaring that, I should make sure that I don’t like lassi! This makes life much more interesting and tension free. We all are familiar with the quote "don't judge me until you've walked in my shoes'. Let us try to implement it and only to make ours and other's lives better.

Your Loss Is Your Gain

          This post is inspired by the ideas that formed a cocktail in my mind and stayed there for a really long time until today when I finally thought of giving it some shape. This post is a long time due. Not that I never made up my mind to write about but I always felt it was incomplete. But today I felt it was a bit okay if not perfect. So here it is.  

          I am sure that all of us have heard and agree with "change is the only constant". This is not a debate that argues otherwise but an effort to substantiate it through my experience. I have changed a lot in a very less time considering my reluctance to sudden change around me. There is a drastic change in my personality, like and dislikes, priorities and preferences, opinions, emotions etc. I changed from a person who never ordered anything that she didn't know about in a restaurant to someone who did not hesitate to try '5 spice duck' in a Thai restaurant, which by the way I loved. This change was possible because I resigned the introvert in me and put the carefree alter ego to work, only because Bharath asked me to do it. 

          There is a dialogue in the entertainment world that, "if a person really loves you, he should accept you without changing who you are". I am sure most of you agree with it. I strongly believed till I realized how Bharath always encourages me to change and I am really enjoying the new me. He always advocates that I try something new, especially if he enjoys doing it. It is okay if someone tries to change you, especially if it for your own good and if you are really missing something in life that you can otherwise experience. When you keep yourself in a changing pace continuously, why do you think it is bad for someone who loves you to change you if it is for your own benefit? I say you should always listen to your mind and not ego. 

          We are open to change if it benefits us. But do we welcome the change with open hands if it is for others? Why is it difficult to change if it is not self-provoked? I am not implying that you need to turn ourselves around for Someone. Also that Someone has to come halfway along if you are ready to take that path. That is how a relationship is built. Sometimes you might be skeptical if the other person is really ready to walk the way with you. But it is not up to you to control the other person. It is in your hand to take the first step and show that you are willing to change and solve the same riddle in that Someone's mind. At least you will know if it was really worth your time or not. It is okay to lose and show the special Someone that you are ready to lose but only till you are respected for that. Relationships can have different course of events if you believe "it is okay to lose". You don't have to change if it's not what you want but there is no harm in trying it, even if it is for Someone else. Relationships are about striking the balance and it is okay if you are the one to start compromising. 

          I have made legion of decisions that registered my destiny to where I stand today. Although I don't regret a good number of those, given a chance I would love to go back and do certain thing that I did a bit differently. I would have been a physicist and not an engineer if I can go back to "the 17 years old stop" of the time machine or I would have fought a little with my besties at "the 14 years old stop" or may not have chosen to go to hostel at "the 11 years old stop". Having said all these, I am proud to be an engineer, having fought with my besties and totally enjoyed the hostel life. Either ways, you can't change the past but can correct the future but making amends necessary.  

          It is no secret that we all change with time. We moved from pencils to pens, half-ticket to full-ticket, bicycles to bikes and then to cars, schools to colleges, cereals to oats, casuals to formals, desktops to laptops, handheld video games to Xbox, bedroom to master bedroom, zircon to diamond, being comfy on flats to wearing only heels and so on. But be the change that makes you happy and the ones that make your life less aggravated. It is okay to change for others and change others but for better.

I Embraced A New Idea

          Like a typical girl with a smartphone, I am a camera freak. The first and the only thing that matters to me while buying a new phone is that it should have an awesome camera and a sizable memory to store all my pictures. I take pictures of everything I come across. I do it to cherish the memory of that incident, as a souvenir, to frame them, to Instagram or to send it to my parents and in-laws. To put in Bharath's words, I look for an excuse to click pictures, which is cent percent true. Not only clicking, I have the habit of seeing them whenever I find time. In fact, I make time to see them. To encourage my habit, my husband not only got me a DSLR, but never minds when I click pictures. He also makes sure I get a lot of pictures just because I like taking pictures.

          I rejoice seeing the old pictures because it gives account of how much I enjoyed that particular moment. I have heard people saying that every moment is not meant to be captured in pixels. There are moments that are to be enjoyed only by feeling them. I never quite agreed with that argument. Again, it is ones perspective. I am a kind of person that doesn’t embrace any idea without having a chance of experiencing it myself. But I have to narrate a couple of incidents that made me agree with the fact that some moments are meant to be enjoyed than pixelated.

          I was exposed to change in culture, environment, life style and pretty much everything you can name when I moved to United States, with only 20 hours of transition time that I spent changing flights and travelling. Before even I could imagine what I have to face, I was placed at the core of change. Bharath helped me to understand a lot of new systems around me. But I was the one who had to learn everything about new school. I was the only Indian in my entire department, both undergraduate and graduate school included. It is easy to adjust in a new place if you have a partner who knows how you feel and help you learn and ease the awkwardness. I did not have that privilege in my school. I had to ask each and everything form a rude advisor who was assigned to me. As days passed I got used to it and found an alternate way, which is not the issue here. After having gone through all these I had promised myself that I will do anything in my power to help a new comer to adjust without facing the difficulties I had to face.

          After one year of my masters, I finally met an Indian in my class. I can't say how relieved and happy I was because of that. As I promised myself, I taught her everything she has to know, both about school and to live in United States. I saw in her, the old me. It made me wonder how much I had changed in a year. I voluntarily made a lot of changes myself, but there are quite a few that happened without my knowledge. You know what they say, change is inevitable. 

          When I was new to United States, I thought people carry hot water flask in this cold weather. But people drank cold water out of water fountain even when the temperature outside was -35⁰C. I had a very hard time drinking cold water out of water fountain. First of all, I was not familiar with water fountain and also I was not used to drinking cold water. Half of the water that entered my mouth used to fall out before I could gulp. And the amount of water that I could hold in my mouth was cold and it hurt my teeth. But after a year now, I am so used to cold water that I can't drink warm water at all. I found the new girl facing the same difficulty. So I say "don’t worry you will get used to it" because I know she will get used to it just like me.

          Also it took me a while to get used to walk from studio apartment to school. Although it was just 15 minutes, I my jaws used to get frozen. It took me a year to get used to cold. Now when I walk out with her, I see her struggling the same way even when this year's lowest temperature is -13⁰C. I try to make her feel better that this winter is better than the last one. So I say "don’t worry you will get used to it" because I know she will get used to it just like me.

          Being with her, I remembered how I was a year ago and how I am now. I can recall everything without seeing the pictures these incidents made me realize that you don’t have to have pictures to remember each and every moments. Some moments are really meant to be felt and remembered. They should have a place in our minds and not on your computer hard disk. Having said all these, I will not stop taking pictures because it is something that defines me. It is an idea that doesn't change my life *winks*.

It is snowing outside as I am composing this piece, so the camera enthusiast in me clicked a few pictures. Here I am sharing them. Well a few of them. I tried my best to capture the snowflakes falling, let me know if you can see them.

Food for my thought

            It's Monday again, that part of the week where I have to drive an hour to attend 5 hours of classes. I can't change that routine so I have made my peace with it. So as usual, I picked and dragged myself to school. I don't know what it is about today that made me lethargic than I usually am. But certainly the cold breeze that I felt as soon as I stepped out of my warm car drained half of my laziness and to remove the other segment, helped myself to Starbucks to have my favorite vanilla latte. Located in downtown and in the heart of my campus, the coffee shop was filled with students. Some of them occupied with probably assignments and projects (thought so because those are the only things in my mind, apart from the thanksgiving break) at tables, while others were chatting in the queue that was lined from the cash register to the farther end of the shop. Since I had to survive the day, I stood in the queue determined to have my coffee. Finally it was my turn, I ordered and joined another queue that was lined to collect the orders. While I was waiting for my drink, one who was standing next to me complemented on my shoes saying "I love your shoes. It looks comfortable".

            I have always heard lot of quotes on 'smile at any stranger'. I experienced and learnt to reciprocate that gesture. I don’t know the impact on others, but it never really had any on me effect. But I didn't stop extending it to others. Today's incident had very powerful impact on me. It not only abated my laziness but refilled me with the enthusiasm to spend the rest of day. That stranger made my Monday by complementing me. Now I know how a smile from a stranger really feels to the recipient. 

            I know that simple complement and smile may or might not be enough to live with but it definitely rejuvenates the soul when it is most needed. Of course today's incident was trivial. When it can help me, it will positively help in a real serious, moment. Indeed such a gesture might not stick in the mind of a recipient but what matters is that we can divert that person off his tensions then it is definitely worth.

            Are simple things really enough to make us happy? Is a smile really enough to live? But it really helps us get though a sad hour or boring day. How big of a happiness is need to make us happy? Indeed, a warm hug from our beloved will certainly make us contented, secured and rejuvenating; but is it enough? Well, the answers to these questions are simple. A smile, a warm hug or any such gesture might not be enough to live with, but they are certainly needed. So, today I made a resolution to do my bit to make a stranger happy.

Politics…!?

Although this post may seem politically biased, I would like to say it is otherwise.

16/05/2014 is the day that is to be remembered for having witnessed the historical win of BJP in the world’s largest democratic nation. As it is known the election process solely revolved around the popularity of the individuals from three different parties, one being the newly emerged. There was a clear opposition for the UPA government all over the nation. The AAP, also due to the folly actions that was seen Delhi, caused many people to withdraw the allegiance. So, then political fight all came down to rebuking Mr. Narendra Modi. My point is not that NaMo is right, but the strategy employed by AAP and congress parties is preposterous. If you want to rule a nation with the ideologies that you think are superior, why not win it by proving your points than to blame your counterpart? 

One of the biggest challenges that any nation possess in the world is corruption. I sadly have to admit that it commensurates to a higher rate in India. I would like to underscore the fact that it’s not the only issue face. I agree it’s the root cause of every injustice, but how reasonable is it to start cutting a fully grown Ficus religiosa from its root. If you want to uproot a century old tree, you begin by cutting it branches and not by chopping the root. It is not difficult for a nation who has learned to live with corruption to survive a little more and wait till the branches are cut, am I wrong in saying so? I’m not against AAP but cutting the root is what they ventured for by resigning as a CM.

Also I would like to present my opinion on passing a bill, amending the law, etc. in the name of reformation. What should to the new bill contain that can prove it to be better than the existing one? Although the December 2012 incident raised the wave of demanding the capital punishment for what happened, as the criminals fully deserve it without doubt, how reasonable is it to state “crime is crime” and extend the same punishment to every other thing that happens around us? Of course it’s not a new thing that the extent of crime determines the punishment, but my question is that can you blindly punish the corrupt by framing “draconian” law against them once for all by passing the all know JAN LOKPAL bill ? Isn’t it just like cutting the tree by root? Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav who caused the generation of thousands of crores only from railway was imprisoned for being corrupt. But isn’t it better to punish him by compelling to bring such changes in every other department and not giving him the cried? It benefits us and as well as teaches him a solid lesson. I just said this to put forth my opinion that imprisonment is not the ultimate option for every crime.

I’m definitely against corruption just like you are. But what if I were given an option between fighting for my rights in court and save my time, energy & money by paying some amount of bribe to a public servant, for a small crime such as hitting a wall by mistake and harming my own vehicle? Well, I don’t know what your answer would be but I would definitely choose the latter. Where lies the problem now? Should I change my decision and choose to go through laborious court proceedings or spare myself my time? Perhaps I feel bribing is okay in this case since I was concussed by such incident and you haven’t gone through it. Also as one of my friends questioned back saying: what if someone who hit you got away paying bribe? But it is definitely subjected to condition that he should be really guilty. If it wasn’t deliberated, what’s the use of imprisonment since the whole issue was “accidental”. It may sound preposterous, does it really? By such illustration all I mean is that terminating a corrupt public servant is the solution to eradicate corruption, great minds should meet to find better ways. If I can take liberty to compare, it is just like killing a HIV+ hoping to eradicate AIDS. Killing a patient doesn’t eradicate the disease.

Also it is reasonable to believe that the reformation should start somewhere and a chance should be given to a person who wants to try. But Mr. Arvind Kejariwal rejected his chance in Delhi by resigning for the post of CM of my nation’s capital. Does that mean everything else in Delhi was so perfect that he did not have anything else to change or enhance? He was given a chance by people to rule and put his words into actions but he had the audacity to reject chance. The basic virtue that an individual or any leader is expected to possess is patience, he lacked that very trait. And he certainly paid for his mistakes. I liked this man before for I personally felt that he gave voice to the youth, but how far is it okay to reject he duty bestowed on a leader for which he elected for a mere fact that he felt corruption is the only problem? 

Election is the time where we get to know how far and deep a candidate’s oratory skill is, be it innate or developed as per the circumstances and requirements. We have witnessed a legion of them all through 1947 or may be a few even before. With such an amazing track record of bearing witness to many such speeches, I certainly believe that we have acquired some sort of nerve, at least in recent days, to differentiate between the reasonable and incredulous claims that the political candidates make. Also we being the firm believers of the policy “give chance to someone who tries” tend to find even a small trace of sincerity in the candidate and vote for him. We certainly don’t expect him to resign, do we?

Talking about the ritual of resignation, there is another practice wherein a minister, MP, MLA, or higher government officials are compelled to resign as endue of certain unfortunate event that is hard to control. But can resignation really solve the issue at hand? The opposition speaks about resignation which best iterates the fact that we are well versed in the art of taking advantage of any kind of minute downfall our counterpart goes through. Our politician make their living conspiring for the same, not putting themselves in the shoe of the man in power. Blaming one another is precisely what they do. 

Among many more political strategies, there is one that follows election. Candidate and his associates pay utmost and diligent attention to the promises made by his competent, scrutinize them meticulously and use them as weapon against the winning candidate. Mr. Arvindh Kejariwal suffered this. During the Delhi election he had promised he would solve certain issues in 15 days. He couldn’t do it which was turned as a weapon against him. But what if he couldn’t do in 15 days? There could be various other pressures or another task of higher priority. Can a person or a party who has not managed to do alone the required work blame a man who is trying to bring certain new reforms in just 15 days of 5 years term? Sounds ridiculous.

Same is the case with the indictment made against Mr. Narendra Modi when he mentioned about his wife officially. What if he is married and the public was not aware of that fact? Isn’t the fact whether a man is married, unmarried, divorced or remarried exclusive of the reformation he could bring with his ideologies? There are many other political candidate who have been practicing polygamy against the law, doing absolutely nothing in return to the citizens who elected him. What if Modi is married? Is that really an obstacle for us to debate over?

          I would like to rise a flag of appreciation to Ms. Jayalalitha’s party in the state of Tamil Nadu. She has employed various steps that deserve appreciation beyond words. She showed it is possible to provide food, pension for old people and widows, medical and banking facilities to the rural and remote parts along with the other elements that couldn’t be categorized under the title “basic needs”. As a result of this, many people who had migrated to different states with a hope of earning better living gave a second thought of returning to their hometowns. She showed that all there can be given to the people without compelling the working class to pay more tax. She deserves an award as opposed to the recognition that AK got before his lunatic resignation. Any government that works sincerely for it is citizens will be given another chance. No government or party is above citizens, as the adage goes “Janata Janardhana”.
 

I wrote all these just to put forth my idea that all politicians are same in my nation. There are so many works that every party has left pending, mainly on purpose for what is termed as “vote bank politics”. Everything that I mentioned above is what we all understand as the synonym of politics. But to what extent can it rise? Should be a certificate of merit for politicians? It’s not the solution since merits and awards are not correlated with the common sense one must possess to rule us. Who will think of the possible alternatives? Even if you have who will transcribe this opinion into bill and then into rule? Greed is the mother of all ills in the world. We all must contribute to the change we aspire for a very famous adage, but we prefer to bribe the police than to pay a higher fine when we are caught for violating the traffic rules. We need to really do our bit and change the way we think and examine everything around, because indeed “change begins from me”.

World is no different from you…!!

At times the grief makes you so heavy that it compels you to lighten yourself by sobbing it out.

You feel light with every tear drop that tickles out.

It ceases to make you strong, but makes you vulnerable.

Gives you a cynical outline for everything.

At times the grief makes you so heavy that it compels you to lighten yourself by sobbing it out.

You feel light with every tear drop that tickles out.

It ceases to make you strong, but makes you vulnerable.

Gives you a cynical outline for everything.

You begin to feel every random activity happening around is pointing at you.

Everything you see, feel, experience, infuses a cumulative fear in you.

Chokes your throat, your own eyes threatens you by not letting to sob it out.

Gloom stretches all along your way, pervades your world.

Craving to smile again, you spend your days, wishing to walk alone, loving you own company.

Dancing to the rhythm of your heartbeat, you wish to live again.

The gushing wind whispers a tale of hope into your ears.

Rising sun sets you with new dreams.

Smelling the air around, you learn the world has changed, but not new.

You wonder where you can place yourself amongst everyone you see, until you realize, world is no different from you.

Mind…!!

As an incident goes in Mahabharata, Yudishtira attempts to drink water from a beautiful lake where Yaksha resided. Former was asked to give satisfactory answers to the questions Yaksha would ask else he claimed water would turn into poison. Out of the random questions he asked, there is a special one. Both the question and answer had a great impact on me ever since I heard about it, probably when I was 6 years old. Question was “what travels faster than wind?” and the answer Yudishtira gave was MIND. Of course I was too young to understand these when I heard it, but my mother gave an example that helped me to understand his answer. She said, “You can think about England and the very next moment about America, so mind is faster than wind”. Mind is not only fastest, it is most powerful too. It has ability to control an individual and hence his surrounding, province, state, nation and the entire world. Thus by conquering our mind, which is most difficult, we can conquer the world. Of course it is easy said than done, but not impossible.

 We have always told that there is a counter force within us that always projects the stuffs that are easy, no matter if it’s right or not, onto our mind. Controlling mind is nothing but suppressing this counter force such that mind proceeds in a way that is best. It doesn’t have the capacity to differentiate between right and wrong. However we can program our mind by constantly feeding in what is good. But we often surrender ourselves to our mind, especially when we are intrigued by what our mind imposes on us. In those times we ourselves loose our inherent ability to analyze things. Simple and well know example, we lie even though we are aware that it is wrong. If mind is not controlled prudently it might reach a level wherein we don’t even feel guilty for our conduct ever though we know it is exceptionable.

Our mind is like a huge reservoir of memories. Storage space of our memory is the concoction of various stuffs that are eclectically picked in the most random fashion. We believe that we don’t have control over the flow of memories, both inwards and outwards. We often remember the moments that we never want to even think about for life. Many a times we forget moments that are worth remembering for life. Indeed it is the most complicated mechanism that no one has understood till now. We can even erase the unwanted memory permanently by properly controlling the mind. If not erase at least we can prioritize the outflow by controlling our mind. Of course, it might considerable time, but it is not impossible.

Many of you are aware of the conscious and sub conscious levels of human mind. When we are asleep, sub conscious level will take over the charge of the conscious level. It’s because of this we don’t fall off the cot when we are asleep. It might have happened with us when we were kids, but now since we have toned our mind against it, we don’t. There is an urban legend, proved to be true that if you whisper something into the ears of the person who has just fallen into sleep (verge of transiting to the sub conscious level) that person hither towards it. For example, if you are very tired and want to fall asleep and snoring of someone is preventing you from sleeping. You can try and wake that person, not completely, but wake him off his sound sleep and whisper in his ears to stop snorting, it definitely works even though not in a first go.

Many a times you may expect people around you to understand what you are going through, as a right, when they actually don’t care. For instance if you are assigned to do anything in a group, you may begin to think it’s only you who is working and others are taking the credit for no reason. You may exaggerate it and impose it on them indirectly and begin despising them. At that time your mind thinks only from your perspective. You wouldn’t even want to know the fact. But what you actually need to contemplate is that “is that despise worth when group work is not the only thing??”. Mind inherently has ability to analyze and pass verdict quickly, from only one angle. Mind must be programmed to be more flexible. You might be frustrated if you are not wished by someone on your birthday. But is that necessary?? If you are frustrated, it is only your loss. Mind has to be trained to be calm for only you can take best care of yourself.

All the great men have always given importance to “mind control”. Guru Mahaveera says, “You can conquer this world, only if you have conquered your mind”.  “A man must elevate himself by his own mind, not degrade himself. Mind is man’s friend and his enemy as well” quoted by Sri Prabhupada. So is the importance of mind control. Along with training our mind to ignore the counter force, we must also make direct it to remain calm as much as possible. It is of sheer necessary to direct our mind, which is so powerful, in a right way.