Happy Mother’s Day Maa!!!

Mother – no amount of writing or praising can actually justify the title. Still I would make an attempt to do so because I personally feel I haven’t been able to express how much my mom means to me and I hope I am able to do so by writing it down.  ‘Maa’ as we lovingly  call our mothers in India are nothing less than GOD. Its rightfully said that God couldn’t be everywhere hence mothers were made. On a personal front my mom is my ‘hero’. People say being an house wife is the toughest job in the world but I say being my mom is the toughest. Raising two children is tough enough, ask any mom out there. But to do so while having to earn a living requires extraordinary character. I come from a modest family. We never had any servants in our home. To be able to do all the household chores as well as perform on the professional front just shows how strong a character my mom is made of. She is the strongest person I have ever known in my life. Hell, she is more awesome and cooler than Batman!! There was never a moment in my entire life where she was unavailable for me, whether physically or emotionally, because of her work. She just epitomizes everything a mother stands for. The itinerary of a typical day in my mom’s life during my school days was :-

• Wake up at 5.
• Do the household chores of brooming and sweeping.
• Prepare breakfast for the whole family.
• Prepare lunch for me and my elder brother.
• Leave for office till 8:30.
• Slug it out in the office.
• Come back home and bring something to eat while coming.
• Look to it that I sat down to study.
• Prepare dinner for the whole family.
• Wash the dishes.
• Sleep at 11.

Imagine doing this for nearly two decades and you would understand the gravity of the situation. She never had time for herself. Her entire life is dedicated to us. Not once have I felt inferior to other rich kids around me because I was never made to feel the absence of any comfort. Not once have I eaten food from outside during childhood because mom never complained of being too tired to cook. She was always there. Punctual and disciplined. She was always upbeat when it came to us. And just when you thought that her duties might be over, she adds another responsibility upon herself. To look after our grandmother. Though my grandmother doesn’t live with us but my mom looks after her as though she does. The greatest lessons I have learned in my life was through my mom. You can only earn a living through education but how to lead a good life was taught by my mom. She was, is , will be the greatest teacher in my life. She taught me ‘simple living, high thinking‘, ‘People are unkind, be kind anyways‘, ‘there are lots of pains in life, smile anyways‘, ‘sometimes world will seem unjust and tough place, be good anyways‘, ‘people may not help you, help anyways‘. What I am today mom, I am only because of you. You have knowingly or unknowingly always been my pillar of strength. When I look at you I feel so blessed. I couldn’t have asked for more.

You are no ordinary human maa. You were, are and will always be my superhero. There is this title song of the bengali serial we used to watch. It went something like ‘Tomar chada ghoom ashe na Maa‘, which translates to ”without you I am unable to sleep, MOM’. I can’t imagine what I would have done without you maa.

Even if I am able to be half of a person you are maa, I think I would succeed in being your son. Or at least I hope I prove myself worthy of being called ‘your son’. As I conclude with tears slowly rolling down my eyes I have only thing to say to you – ‘I Love You and I see God in you Maa!!’

A Year Older, A Lot Wiser!!

Happy Birthday to me, happy birthday to me!!! Yes today I am officially 22. I must admit it doesn’t sound as cool as saying I am 21. Doesn’t quite ring the same bell in the ears. Anyways, hard truth is that I am 22 now, a year older, one more year taken away from my running around days. Feels weird to think of it in that way. I never have been too excited about birthdays, especially mine. I always see it as another day gone by. But this birthday holds special place in my heart. Because this birthday marked a changed me, different from my old self.

Things are bound to change in life. That change can be viewed by comparing, by retrospecting on the time between two significant life events in our lives. In my life it happens to be the period between my 21st and 22nd birthday. A lot has changed and ‘a lot’ doesn’t even begin to define the depth of change that has occurred in my life as well as in me. Its a kind of ‘this time last year’ kind of case. So this day last year, I was in love. I was friends with a girl whom i thought to be the most awesome person in the whole world. I was going through ‘you spin my world right round right round’, ‘I’d catch a grenade for ya’, ‘All I ever wanted was You and me’, ‘Coz you are amazing just the way you are!!’……… I have always loved the feeling of being in love. It just make you wake up every morning with a smile on your face. You look forward to each day enthusiastically. It just changes your life in so many ways. We had this wonderful dinner that day. And life couldn’t have been any more amazing.

Fast Forward eight months. I had turned into someone I myself was finding hard to recognize. No where near who I really am. Regular fights and the stress had turned me into someone I never want to be again. Relationships turned sour and my heart was filled with hate.

Fast forward four months. If my maths is right, it is today. A changed person. Of course it didn’t happen overnight. It took its fair share of days. But I am glad t occurred. I am in love again. But this time its with myself. I have learnt quite a few lessons

• ‘First learn to love yourself, Only then can you love others!!’ 
• ‘Everything in life comes with an expiry date. So be prepared.’
• ‘Learn to let go.’
• ‘Always have the feeling of love in your heart. Even for those because of whom you have been hurt. Because life is not meant for hate.’
• ‘Smile. Just because it feels good to be you.’

I have tried to inculcate these lessons to the best of my capabilities. I have risen above hate a great deal. Not completely but surely. I have no ill feelings for the girl whom I loved from the bottom of the heart because if it hadn’t been for her I wouldn’t have been who I am today. Though i no more feel she is the most awesome person in the world but she truly is golden at heart. Of course, I do miss her from time to time but it just shows how much I was in love. I am able to smile more because I have learnt to make peace with the harder truths of life. I am able to look forward to each day because it presents new opportunities to challenge myself, to be able to discover myself.  22 and already looking forward for the 23rd. Its gonna be a hell of a ride.

The line rightly sums up how I feel today- “A Year Older A Lot Wiser!!!”

 

Deciphering The Greatest Mystery of Life : Women!!!!

I guess most men will agree with me on this. Women truly are the greatest mystery of life. Cant live with them, cant live without them as they say. If a guy, by any chance, truly understands the ways of the fairer sex then he deserves all the respect in the world. Because woman kind truly are a complicated bunch. They will make your head spin through their thoughts and actions. And all the best to the guy who is on the opposite side. Only one warning to him- Mate, you are in for a hell of a ride!!

Firstly. woman are dumb. There is a shortage of smart females out there. And by smart I mean women who are actually aware of whats going on the world and not just their own lives. Those who don’t have to be guided while in midst of technology. In their defense they are really not interested in technology but girls, please learn to use Google’s additional features properly and please for gods sake know the basic functions in a computer. Its really irritating for a guy to mouth feed you some of the easiest things.

Girls and Technology can never go hand in hand!!!

Secondly, Girls please put aside your egos. Especially with respect to your relationship with your fellow women. Please stop your bitching.  If you don’t like a particular person please just stop talking with her rather than showing the world that you are friends but bitching about one another afterwards. Guys don’t like the bitching. I have seen even best friends bitch about each other. I mean What the hell! Just say it on the face.

Thirdly, stop your obsession about looks. Especially those of other women. Stop discussing about their outfits, earrings, footwear!!! Let them be please. No one obsesses about your looks other than you yourself.

Fourthly, stop bargaining. Bargaining is good but you lot overdo it by a huge margin. And to make it worse you flaunt it. Its very irritating trust me.

p.s.  Above article is only in good humor. Girls please don’t make me your enemy. I really love you all!!!

Because The Change Is In Me!!!

Change is the only constant thing in life. Thus is life. Heard it numerous times haven’t me. And it is true. We might have had various experiences regarding the same. We are not built, programmed to remain stagnant in our lives. We have to keep  moving forward. But many times we fail to do so. We get stuck on certain experiences, certain loss that might have happened in our lives. We get so worked up that we begin to think less of ourselves. We forget to live in the present and stop looking forward towards brighter future. It all seems the end of the world.

For this very reason change is paramount. We need to change ourselves continuously in order to be happy. Its not wrong to grieve but it is wrong to forget how wonderful we are in that grief. Yes loss is inevitable. Everyone cant remain in our lives forever. they are meant to move on. And so should we, how much so ever we might love them. It might be the hardest thing you might do in your life. But you have to do it.  And most of all we need to keep believing in ourselves. That we are equally wonderful no matter what happens and that we have the strength to get back on our feet every time we fall.

And I am saying all this from personal experience. I have couple of failed friendships. For the first couple of them I admit I didn’t take it all too well. I was depressed beyond despair and felt like I didn’t exist. But the last one taught me a lot of things. The one important thing I learnt from it was that of change. The other one was that scars aren’t bad. Rather its good to have scars. They reflect the fact that you had the guts to give your heart to someone. the one thing I made myself believe was that it happened because it was meant to. Now I don’t necessarily mean that I wasn’t hurt. I grieved a lot actually, it hurt bad. But i understood that this experience wasn’t given to me so that I stop smiling, so that i stop remaining happy. And I smiling also doesn’t mean I don’t miss them from time to time. I do but I kinda learned to live happily without them. And the greatest change I believe I brought into myself is that I never have had negative feelings towards them in spite of all the grievances. I never had the feeling of revenge once. I in some ways am in peace. O:)

“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”
― Anne Lamott

 

 

Yes I Still LOve You!!! :)

She uploaded new pics on Facebook. And like always i am magnetically attracted towards them. More than the picture itself i am attracted towards her smile. Those dimple-filled smiles makes my heart skip a beat like it did 8 years back. The glint in her eyes just mesmerizes me every time i look at them. She just looks so happy and at peace. She seems at home down south though she is far away from it. I was particular pleased to see that she overcame her fear of dogs and loves them nowadays. Makes her all the more attractive in my eyes. Its been 4 years since we were friends last but my feelings haven’t changed a bit. I feel the same way about her now as i felt then. Though I have let her go. Someone has rightly said…. You don’t stop loving someone, you just learn to live without them. I have done the same thing i guess…. YES my first love… I still love you!!!

P.S. I just remembered that it is your birthday tomorrow!!! (or i think it is… been a long time you see..) So as you turn 22 (i suppose.. ) I just want you to know there will always be a guy who loves you!! Many Many happy returns of the day!!!!

Yes I do still watch Animes!!!

Recently I started watching Naruto Shippuden. As usual i was mocked upon by my friends for being a kid. You are too old for this… i heard this every time i let someone know that i had started watching the anime. But i never really cared for their views. I always believed its important for us to be in touch with the child within us. The world is already a shit place to live in. It gets really tough to live in if we take upon a serious point of view towards it. Sometimes we need to be a child again in order to make through tough times. Just be able to laugh it off is all important.

Naruto Shippuden!!! \m/

To add to it, Naruto isn’t such a childish anime anyways. I have never come across a anime depicting such strong emotions. I am not embarrassed to admit that i even had tears in my eyes in one of its episodes. It does have some philosophical contents and not the usual kind of anime.. you know the ones which you have to see keeping logic out of the context. It has captured me in a sense no other anime have. Learnt and realized quite a few things from it. One thing that really enthralled me was how it made me realize that we need to learn to forgive people even if the other person has hurt you simply because hate takes birth from revenge. Till there is the feeling of revenge hate will always encompass us. True peace can only be achieved by learning to forgive. I forgive you….. these three words can go a long way into achieving inner peace. We need to get rid of having the urge to take revenge. Only then can we truly be at peace with ourselves.

I am sure many of us are crazy about animated movies. At least I am. They have always amused me way beyond the regular movies. I rather prefer watching animated movies over the regular ones. All of them are made with a purpose- to deliver a strong message. Most of them do succeed in providing a strong enough message. Be it the scientifically accurate ‘Wall E’ or ‘Despicable Me’ depicting that even bad guys can be good at heart, all animated movies carry a strong message. They are always filled with strong emotions (just watch the last part of the Toy Story series) which always captures my attention. Day before yesterday I happened to watch ‘Wreck It Ralph’. The movie is excellent. I dont know if everyone will like it or not but I would suggest you watch it. After a long time has a movie been able to leave tear in my eyes as well as a smile across my face. Strong emotions depicted throughout the movie.

Wreck It Ralph!!!!

I have no shame in admitting I love watching animes and will do for a long time. They bring out the child in me which I don’t want to suppress. So kudos to the child in me and I would suggest others to keep the child in them alive!!!

Forgive and Forget!!!

We all have come across a quote stating- “Forgive but never forget!!” I never really understood this saying much. It never made much sense to me. Why do we forgive a person in the first place? Firstly because they still mean something in your life. Secondly because everyone deserves a second chance. Now what i believe is that if you aren’t ready to forget the mistakes done by a person you have never truly forgiven him/her. There will always be a judgement of that particular person based on his/her wrong doings on the back of your mind. Forgiveness should mean a new start, like the first page of a newly purchased book. It might be difficult hence forgiveness is coined as a act of great courage. A person capable of true forgiveness is a great man. Forget should accompany forgive for if you really want that person in your life you need to overlook the past.

Do what you love or Love what you do???

There is a thin line between both of them. Though they sound quite similar but actually they mean two quite separate things. The old classical way is to do what you love in your life which was advertised by Steve Jobs as well as many others. Follow your passion is what they say. The one thing they don’t say is that sometimes its not feasible to do the things what we love, that sometimes we aren’t able to find what we love in time. In Indian education system children are rarely given the responsibility or rather the opportunity to decide or discover what they really love. We follow a fixed pattern. Above 80= Science, above 60=Commerce, anything below that Arts is deemed to be the field of choice. We are hardly the bearer of our life choices. Its taken over by our parents. They are right in their ways as they feel they are thinking the best for their child and that we are too young to judge the right course. But they do need to take into consideration about how the child feels about the particular decision. I know times are changing but its still incomplete. They need to have the faith and courage to provide their child the opportunities and independence to choose certain things in their life especially when they are sure and willing about that particular thing. What is the worst thing that could happen.They will fail. Let them. That’s how they will learn. There is no use protecting them.

Earlier, I mentioned that sometimes its not feasible to do what you love. Consider my case. Though i realized it late, 2 years into engineering, my dream job would have been a sports presenter or anything in journalism. At first i regretted at the very thought of taking up engineering. But now i have no regrets. When i look back talking up journalism would have meant taking a huge risk. There is no instant success in that field. I had no scope for failure there as i have to support my family whereas engineering guarantees a stable future. Most of you will think i didnt have the guts but its not like that. Sometimes you need to look at the bigger picture. Sometimes circumstances are such that you need to sacrifice certain things. I may not be able to live my dream but atleast i am looking to it that my children have the right situations to follow theirs.  

This is the reason why i have become a firm believer in the new saying of Love what you do. Make the job you are doing now your passion. Sometimes we arent able to decide what we really love, sometimes we cant choose what we really love, in such cases its better to make the job we are currently engaged in our passion. Do what you are currently doing to the best of your potential. You will eventually fall in love with it. Be it sooner or later. Fall in love with your current job and you will like doing it.

If you do find out the thing you love early in life and have the ideal circumstances to chase after then have no second thoughts about doing it. But if you arent in the best of positions to judge then Love what you do is the way to go!!!

I would like to thank……

My recent interest in listening to commencement speeches have made me learn and realize quite a number of things. Be it Steve Jobs or Oprah Winfrey at Stanford or J.K. Rowling at Harvard. Each of them spoke about their personal experiences but each of those experience had something to learn from, something which we could relate to our own lives.

Everyone of us will be quite familiar with Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford. What he spoke about was simple yet so complex. Wat he preached was we need to find out what we love and unless we do that we need to keep searching. Do what you love was his saying. Secondly he pointed out that nothing in life goes to waste. Everything you do in your entire life is meant to fall into place somewhere in your life, maybe not in the immediate future but surely it will fit in perfectly sometime later.

Oprahs commencement speech at Stanford was rather more touching. What i learned and would love to inculcate in my life from her speech would be to always follow your gut instinct. because more often than not our gut is right. Our guts know how we truly feel about the situation and hence is capable of taking the right choice. It may not feel right but you ca be rest assured that it is the right one for ourselves. Its paramount that we remain true to our feelings.

Now sometimes the gut might be wrong and we may endure failure. Here is where i found J.K. Rowlings take on failure in her commencement speech at Harvard quite intriguing. Speaking from her own experiences she mentioned that its imperative that we fail at different points in our lives and that we dont lose heart. There is a lot to learn from failures. Without failure we can never know the true sweetness of success. We need to experience failure in order to experience success.She herself endured so much pain in life in order to be in the position she is today.

Lastly i would like to point out the speech that was presented by Lisa Kudrow at Vassar was one typical of how you would describe the women, funny yet capable of some deep thoughts. Her life experiences taught her that everything in life happens for a reason. Even though at that moment you might be cursing that situation but be rest assured that it was meant to happen that way for your own good. In her case she got rejected from the auditions for the then much anticipated TV show “Frasier” which literally left her devastated. Little did she know that down the line she would end up grabbing the role of a character who would touch so many hearts. If she had landed a role in Frasier then who knows if we would have loved FRIENDS as much or for the matter of fact the chracter of Phoebe Buffey so much. You never can judge what happens in life. Its just meant to be that way.

testing… testing..