The one example that every personality development program will pick up with the garb of explaining positivity to the audience. "This glass on the table, how would you describe it?" The ones who consider themselves , the smart "....."- ( i leave that for you to fill up) jump at the answer stating - this is half full, with the expectation to hear, "superb- thats being positive, and the remaining few who sit and sigh at the usual , pattern of questions which are used in the PDPs...
Then spat came an explanation from the lecturer.. "the conotation to this glass is a lot different today. No situation in todays world can be so perfect that it is half full or half empty"... said the lecturer, this glass is "neither full nor empty"
Let me introduce the students and the lecturer to all of you. The students are none other than the hundred questions that fly around in my head and the lecturer is the culmination of my mind and heart. Many a times, i have asked myself this question, can any thing be so clear in todays world? Doubt it. Close to impossible. (Nothing is completely impossible in this world).
Life always takes us through this rugged terrain to explain to us what it means to lead a life which is "neither full or empty" - what is it that any human wants to gain out of this worldly living? Material benefits, lineage..... what? Either ways, all that a human ends up doing is get into this rat race and try to compete in the exodus... leading to irritation/ frustration and a lot of dissatisfaction...
Even though i want to stay away from this deluge of a race which can drown all of us... the force is so strong that i am being carried away by it.. and so is the case with each one of you who is reading this ...so as you read it .. procrastinate and try to realise the importance of yourself and your loved ones in this rat race, because for want of making it in the exodus, dont lose all in this deluge...
WAKE UP AND REALISE THAT LIFE IS NEITHER FULL NOR EMPTY... before you find yourself in a situation trying to figure out WHAT HIT YOU AND WHAT YOU MISSED!!!
GOOD LUCK...
Monday, February 11, 2008
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Darling... do you dare... this is India shining
As i walk into the busy exodus of people in Churchgate, the smell of "tea - chocolate" tempts me to stand at the stall and check out what is being sold there.. the board reads.. tea- 5 rs, coffee- 5 rs, hot chocolate- 10 rs.. vow.. that gives the answer to the enticing smell... both the beverages being my favourites..
After a theekha snack of bhelpuri, my mind settles on the third option.. hot chocolate... and i walk towards the stall, blissfully unaware of the queue lined up to take beverages. I was given the nastiest glance by the aunty in white and it was then i realised that.. " oops.. mumbaichi queue" - one would dare not break the queue..
I pulled out my mumbai mirror and chose to wait rather than scamper into the 7.04 pm local to Andheri ... (all this was happening to me at 7.00 pm).. that i noticed a small boy dressed in a rather large baniyan , begging a man who was gloriously sipping his tea : behold.. the child was not begging him for alms.. he was begging him to give him the last sip of tea remaining in his cup...
As i closely looked at the child, i noticed that he had a sweet face, beautiful almond shaped eyes and is covered with dirt all over, scratching his head and begging with his other free hand... the man shooed him away but persistent to the hilt is what kept that child there... On one hand, here i am standing in the queue waiting for my turn, and there i see a child begging for a sip of tea. When the child realised that he had failed, he turned to large bin next to the stall, assured that the bin would not shoo him away and started collecting all the cups which had some leftovers..
He was making his own cocktail of beverages.. my heart went out to the child..
Behind me i had two well dressed, well educated gentleman sneering at the child, and telling themselves where our country is headed to... i thought.. " truly where is our country headed to..?"
Is it the childs fault that he is forced to rummage the bin to have his sip of tea? Is it the childs fault that he was born in poverty ? Is the childs fault that he is forced to have intoxicants in one hand and beg with the other??? It is sad, but this is the shocking fact of today, the pillars of tomorrow are wasting away in the streets with fevicol and ganga laden pieces of cloth, sniffing them intermittently to get a high and kill their hunger...
Having all the mind to question the men and finally deciding not to talk to the largest variety of nincompoops, i walked upto the stall and purchased 2 cups of hot chocolate and gave one to the child and holding the other one in my hand, i walked upto the platform to take the 7.13 local to Andheri.
Though i was glad that i had purchased a cup of hot chocolate for the child, a rather disturbing thought crossed my mind.. did i just spoil the child by getting him hot chocolate?? Would he be tempted to steal money for a cuppa hot chocolate or would he try to work for it... i was sure that he would choose the first option...
With my mind racing with thoughts of what i should have done/ what ought to be done... i got into the ladies first class, just to enter into another world of expressions, thoughts and struggles. I found my seat and leaned against the window listening to my ipod ( my best pal these days) and dozed off.. still happy that i made the childs night.. even if it is just a night...
All that came to my mind is .. "Oh darling.. yeh hai India... Mera Bharat Mahan"
Till next time.. happy reading
After a theekha snack of bhelpuri, my mind settles on the third option.. hot chocolate... and i walk towards the stall, blissfully unaware of the queue lined up to take beverages. I was given the nastiest glance by the aunty in white and it was then i realised that.. " oops.. mumbaichi queue" - one would dare not break the queue..
I pulled out my mumbai mirror and chose to wait rather than scamper into the 7.04 pm local to Andheri ... (all this was happening to me at 7.00 pm).. that i noticed a small boy dressed in a rather large baniyan , begging a man who was gloriously sipping his tea : behold.. the child was not begging him for alms.. he was begging him to give him the last sip of tea remaining in his cup...
As i closely looked at the child, i noticed that he had a sweet face, beautiful almond shaped eyes and is covered with dirt all over, scratching his head and begging with his other free hand... the man shooed him away but persistent to the hilt is what kept that child there... On one hand, here i am standing in the queue waiting for my turn, and there i see a child begging for a sip of tea. When the child realised that he had failed, he turned to large bin next to the stall, assured that the bin would not shoo him away and started collecting all the cups which had some leftovers..
He was making his own cocktail of beverages.. my heart went out to the child..
Behind me i had two well dressed, well educated gentleman sneering at the child, and telling themselves where our country is headed to... i thought.. " truly where is our country headed to..?"
Is it the childs fault that he is forced to rummage the bin to have his sip of tea? Is it the childs fault that he was born in poverty ? Is the childs fault that he is forced to have intoxicants in one hand and beg with the other??? It is sad, but this is the shocking fact of today, the pillars of tomorrow are wasting away in the streets with fevicol and ganga laden pieces of cloth, sniffing them intermittently to get a high and kill their hunger...
Having all the mind to question the men and finally deciding not to talk to the largest variety of nincompoops, i walked upto the stall and purchased 2 cups of hot chocolate and gave one to the child and holding the other one in my hand, i walked upto the platform to take the 7.13 local to Andheri.
Though i was glad that i had purchased a cup of hot chocolate for the child, a rather disturbing thought crossed my mind.. did i just spoil the child by getting him hot chocolate?? Would he be tempted to steal money for a cuppa hot chocolate or would he try to work for it... i was sure that he would choose the first option...
With my mind racing with thoughts of what i should have done/ what ought to be done... i got into the ladies first class, just to enter into another world of expressions, thoughts and struggles. I found my seat and leaned against the window listening to my ipod ( my best pal these days) and dozed off.. still happy that i made the childs night.. even if it is just a night...
All that came to my mind is .. "Oh darling.. yeh hai India... Mera Bharat Mahan"
Till next time.. happy reading
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Ladies- I CLASS...
Platform number paanch par aane wali gaadi, aath bajkar chaar minute ki churchgate jaane wali jalad……..” these announcements become part and parcel of evry commuters life while working in Mumbai. It is amazing to see the number of people exiting from the trains and running to their respective offices and viceversa. The peak times and the lull times are common in any station.
The ladies first class compartment is a sparce bogie on the local trains as well and the earlier luxurious compartment, now gets packed like mustard seeds in a bottle. Well.. almost so. Women from different streams of lifestyle.. different areas of work/ levels of stress/ pressure in their lives enter into the train.. What entails most often is a clash of thoughts if one crosses another ones path or tries to find way into safety within the compartment.
One could call it a kind of stress buster when you shout and argue with a complete stranger, because it does not matter who you have been rude to and it does not matter if that person has felt bad about it. All that matters is that you have removed your frustrations on a person and that makes you lighter.. .. what a weird world we live in these days!!!
Last evening, while traveling alone back home, blissfully unaware of who’s near me and who’s quarelling.. ( thanks to my ipod that gives me company) I suddenly spotted a lady sitting in the corner of the second half, looking out the window, hearing music and eyes moist.. my heart went out to her.. it is amazing how women can compress all the feelings inside oneself and feel like a pressure cooker ready to give out steam, but still smile and work and put up with all the shit.. that she takes. ( Pardon my slang .. but I guess that’s the word that strikes ones mind, when you see someone in distress) Well clad and petite, she was a beauty to the sore eye.. and it was not a nice feeling to see her suffer silently sitting by the window and having her troubles come out of her eyes… there was a feeling of helpness in me…
Is she going through what I felt a few days back.. it is so hard to detach oneself from emotions.. there are times when all of them just get back to you and the feeling is so overwhelming that it cannot be controlled…. As I glanced around to see who else shared the same space.. I found sweet little girl chatting away with her mom and my thoughts raced to Trisha… Trisha my life.. my doll… my love and everything.. and I prayed that she grows up fast and becomes my friend…
By now, the lady was recuperating from the sudden burst of emotions that she felt.. it is hard fact but it is true and every human needs to master the art of detachment. It is a conditioning of the mind that associates itself to the best or the worst happenings in ones life and all that surrounded the event at that time become the conditions to recreate the same situation… and when one faces them, it is like reliving the same day/ the same moment and successfully detaching oneself from these conditional items is a tough task… but not impossible….
People come, make a mark in ones life/ people leave without a trace.. just like that and I sit wondering as to what did I do??? In the recent past I have been troubled by this question way too often.. trying to seek answers to why some people in my life just detached themselves in such a shoddy way that it becomes difficult to comprehend, assimilate and change accordingly.. because you don’t know “ WHAT THE HELL YOU HAVE DONE???”
The best out of it as I realized was to just shut oneself out of the complete thought.. may be shed a few tears and bury the person/ image forever and for mental satisfaction.. lay an epitaph calling all of those collective bunch of people/ circumstances as “IDIOCRACIES of the MIND” and flush them out of your system.. I guess I have partially achieved that.. ( Kudos to you Priya…!!) One needs to pat oneself on their backs for good job done.. and am sure that all of you who read this will agree to me
Life goes on.. circumstances/ events and people will come… it is like the first class that one chooses to live in.. but it is impossible to find luxury at every stage in life.. there will be times of distress/ pain and sheer happiness.. we need to maneuver our lives and take complete charge of it…
So this is the note to all my friends…
Life is the first class compartment
You wait for one….
You are cheated by one…
You finally get one…
Live on
Laugh on …..and life will be yours forever…
Till next time… happy traveling………………
The ladies first class compartment is a sparce bogie on the local trains as well and the earlier luxurious compartment, now gets packed like mustard seeds in a bottle. Well.. almost so. Women from different streams of lifestyle.. different areas of work/ levels of stress/ pressure in their lives enter into the train.. What entails most often is a clash of thoughts if one crosses another ones path or tries to find way into safety within the compartment.
One could call it a kind of stress buster when you shout and argue with a complete stranger, because it does not matter who you have been rude to and it does not matter if that person has felt bad about it. All that matters is that you have removed your frustrations on a person and that makes you lighter.. .. what a weird world we live in these days!!!
Last evening, while traveling alone back home, blissfully unaware of who’s near me and who’s quarelling.. ( thanks to my ipod that gives me company) I suddenly spotted a lady sitting in the corner of the second half, looking out the window, hearing music and eyes moist.. my heart went out to her.. it is amazing how women can compress all the feelings inside oneself and feel like a pressure cooker ready to give out steam, but still smile and work and put up with all the shit.. that she takes. ( Pardon my slang .. but I guess that’s the word that strikes ones mind, when you see someone in distress) Well clad and petite, she was a beauty to the sore eye.. and it was not a nice feeling to see her suffer silently sitting by the window and having her troubles come out of her eyes… there was a feeling of helpness in me…
Is she going through what I felt a few days back.. it is so hard to detach oneself from emotions.. there are times when all of them just get back to you and the feeling is so overwhelming that it cannot be controlled…. As I glanced around to see who else shared the same space.. I found sweet little girl chatting away with her mom and my thoughts raced to Trisha… Trisha my life.. my doll… my love and everything.. and I prayed that she grows up fast and becomes my friend…
By now, the lady was recuperating from the sudden burst of emotions that she felt.. it is hard fact but it is true and every human needs to master the art of detachment. It is a conditioning of the mind that associates itself to the best or the worst happenings in ones life and all that surrounded the event at that time become the conditions to recreate the same situation… and when one faces them, it is like reliving the same day/ the same moment and successfully detaching oneself from these conditional items is a tough task… but not impossible….
People come, make a mark in ones life/ people leave without a trace.. just like that and I sit wondering as to what did I do??? In the recent past I have been troubled by this question way too often.. trying to seek answers to why some people in my life just detached themselves in such a shoddy way that it becomes difficult to comprehend, assimilate and change accordingly.. because you don’t know “ WHAT THE HELL YOU HAVE DONE???”
The best out of it as I realized was to just shut oneself out of the complete thought.. may be shed a few tears and bury the person/ image forever and for mental satisfaction.. lay an epitaph calling all of those collective bunch of people/ circumstances as “IDIOCRACIES of the MIND” and flush them out of your system.. I guess I have partially achieved that.. ( Kudos to you Priya…!!) One needs to pat oneself on their backs for good job done.. and am sure that all of you who read this will agree to me
Life goes on.. circumstances/ events and people will come… it is like the first class that one chooses to live in.. but it is impossible to find luxury at every stage in life.. there will be times of distress/ pain and sheer happiness.. we need to maneuver our lives and take complete charge of it…
So this is the note to all my friends…
Life is the first class compartment
You wait for one….
You are cheated by one…
You finally get one…
Live on
Laugh on …..and life will be yours forever…
Till next time… happy traveling………………
Friday, October 12, 2007
Games of the Mind
Love, hate, cheat, trust, lies.. all are fragments of the small human mind. The phrase "small human mind" is an oxymoron as the human mind is not small, but can eventually end up thinking and acting so small that one starts wondering that the large mind is truly small.....
Relationships / feelings/ emotions are all part and parcel of the same mind matter that one tries to grab and never leave. In the midst of keeping and accumulating, we lose so many things that it is difficult to realise and the day the realisation dawns, it becomes difficult to accept and then the mode of depression sets in.
When any of us are in confused state of mind, we tend to try and find a soul mate, now how the soul mate wishes to respond is solely on that person, be it genuine or false/ but at that juncture one tends to totally trust that entity and a relationship is created. Some of these relations are very hard to explain, for these are relations whose foundation may be strong, but do not still know what direction the structure has to be built will always be in a state of flux.... The worry that will then always remain is that in the garb of building and maintaining, the relationship may just fall .... and this makes the human mind behave in an insecure way that is difficult to comprehend.
Have been writing on the human mind lately and this is the third part to the first two. Feelings/ emotions have been taking me on a roller coaster ride lately and in trying to untangle the knots and clarify my mind, the realisations that come are penned down in the blog. Am sure a lot of you will be able to synchronise and echo my thoughts..
In all this what we need to understand and tame is the mind, because once tamed, it is your slave otherwise it is a very dangerous proposition to be enslaved by the mind...
Think about it...
Thursday, October 4, 2007
New lesson....
Trisha.. Trisha..... Trisha... my life is just Trisha and Trisha now.... today she did something really really splendid and i am amazed at the rate at which children learn and teach elders...
While watching TV, i generally hold Trisha towards me so that she does not get a chance to see the idiot box. However, i was watching the news and had my eyes glued to the TV. Our lady, was fiddling my T shirt, my earring, pulling my hair and scratching my ears too... I still managed to set my eyes on the TV.
The minute she realised that she is losing the game.... she does not shout or cry for attention, instead, she lifts herself up and tilts her head and looks straight into my eye, blocking the view of the TV... giving me that impish look that.... " do you realise that i am smarter" and then breaks into an amazingly beautiful smile...
She looked at me as if she realised what i was going through and as if she had taken it on herself to make me laugh.. and truly she managed it... When i tried to test her by looking otherways.. she followed me and kept looking straight into my eye and continued the impish smile....
Persistence pays... and i yielded....
Love you Trisha... you made my night...
Monday, October 1, 2007
The Duo
HAHAHAHAHAHA... laughter is the best medicine.... yes true, infact this has more meaning, if, in the course of life, one is able to laugh at oneself before anyone mocks at you. Thats when we have succeeded in living up to this saying..
I was trying to teach my daughter the same.. was trying stunts with the camera... and tried self clicking our snap together... and the result is--- the photo looks like an oil painting...
When i saw the snap again, all that came into my mind was that, this is a true fact of life as well... what ever we are, our lives are finally painted much in advance by a super power. Not that i want to give the super power a face or a structure.... but one thing is certain, if we try, we can help make a nice picture of the painting...
Sure that we make a great duo.. Trisha and myself.. there is a whole life ahead of us and we shall be best of friends.. that is one thing i am sure of... while taking this snap, i tried my best to urge Trisha to smile.. but she was way too perplexed with my endeavour, that she just chose to observe....Some day in the years to come, Trisha will also be able to laugh these days off.. when both of us looked like jokers to each other and helped each other bring a smile to our faces....
Life is a hope today, a hope for a better and peaceful tomorrow... a tomorrow where we will be able to sit along with each other and talk things over... laugh issues off and see the brighter side of what life has given us.....
In my last post, i had mentioned the human mind, this can be a corollary to the same as how one wishes to see life is nothing but a matter of mind and the clearer we are able to be, the better we will be able to project ourself and the faster we will be able to say HAHAHAHAHA and get on with life...
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Truly... Cheeni Kum
Remember the movie that we went to rekindle and ignite the passion.... yeah.. right... cheeni kum... i was glad and happy that somewhere the right start is being made again.... now it is truly " cheeni kum" - a realisation that had been in my sub conscious mind that life is devoid of respect, dedication and value from the quarters one needs them the most.... the only difference being that today someone has stood up to it..
The feeling of referring to oneself as a third person is really interesting as you actually take yourself out of that person and see oneself.... Do all of us live lives or rather.. do all of us know what we want in life??? We tend to attribute everything to the human mind.. which is so abstract... have we understood the meaning of the so often used term??
This is the question that i ask myself today??? Is it a fragment of my thought and expression and a need to rekindle which made has made me feel the way i am feeling today?? .........." Thats a human mind" ... what does one mean by it... ???
Do the people who say it understand what a human mind is, or is a mere phrase which is used by the knowlegdeable and the nincompoops alike?? Not something that one would want to accept soon.. unless someone dwells and ponders on it. In all this there is truth in the fact that in any closely knit relation, if one heart bleeds, many others will bleed with it.. then does the human mind know how to react?? (Oopss... too heavy)
Let me answer that one... the phase of life that is on... feels like i am boiling on a hot pan.... know for certain that all close to me are also feeling the same way.. so how does the mind react, rather what is the role of the so common human mind?? The tempers run high....trying to establish peace... one just ends up in a lot of volcanic eruptions in the bargain....the fact remains- is it all really worth it
Not that my mode has changed to that of a cowardice.. "if one may call it so", but it is swinging between the modes of triumph and failure- it is okay if we feel only failure or only triumph but.... one of the worst emotions to face is "Knowing that you are victorious, triumph is at your door, but is veiled in failure..."
This blog.. inlaws and outlaws started when the human mind of certain in and out laws did not know how to behave and today .... we still dont know.... how this mind will react??
Unfortunately- all of us still want to believe that we know the human mind.. when in reality.. nobody does... we only want to know our emotions.....So where are we heading to as a human race????
A valid question to ponder on.. as far as the mind is concerned...
Shall definitely continue.. this... till then.. think!!!!
The feeling of referring to oneself as a third person is really interesting as you actually take yourself out of that person and see oneself.... Do all of us live lives or rather.. do all of us know what we want in life??? We tend to attribute everything to the human mind.. which is so abstract... have we understood the meaning of the so often used term??
This is the question that i ask myself today??? Is it a fragment of my thought and expression and a need to rekindle which made has made me feel the way i am feeling today?? .........." Thats a human mind" ... what does one mean by it... ???
Do the people who say it understand what a human mind is, or is a mere phrase which is used by the knowlegdeable and the nincompoops alike?? Not something that one would want to accept soon.. unless someone dwells and ponders on it. In all this there is truth in the fact that in any closely knit relation, if one heart bleeds, many others will bleed with it.. then does the human mind know how to react?? (Oopss... too heavy)
Let me answer that one... the phase of life that is on... feels like i am boiling on a hot pan.... know for certain that all close to me are also feeling the same way.. so how does the mind react, rather what is the role of the so common human mind?? The tempers run high....trying to establish peace... one just ends up in a lot of volcanic eruptions in the bargain....the fact remains- is it all really worth it
Not that my mode has changed to that of a cowardice.. "if one may call it so", but it is swinging between the modes of triumph and failure- it is okay if we feel only failure or only triumph but.... one of the worst emotions to face is "Knowing that you are victorious, triumph is at your door, but is veiled in failure..."
This blog.. inlaws and outlaws started when the human mind of certain in and out laws did not know how to behave and today .... we still dont know.... how this mind will react??
Unfortunately- all of us still want to believe that we know the human mind.. when in reality.. nobody does... we only want to know our emotions.....So where are we heading to as a human race????
A valid question to ponder on.. as far as the mind is concerned...
Shall definitely continue.. this... till then.. think!!!!
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