Melting Hearts

I was listening to some music today, an instrument piece; it touched me somewhere and my eyes were wet. This nostalgia creeps into our lives so very often. Each one of us has memories. Some good and some not so good. Remember those days when teacher used to make you the class monitor and you felt like a king / queen, your first date (not the bill please). Can you ever forget your first salary? Many of us have an experience when we feel life slipping out of our hand when we loose some near one. I feel a tear in my eyes whenever such a thought crosses my mind. Such moments melt in my eyes and my heart.

I remember when I lost someone very close to me, I could not believe that for a long time. I felt his presence everywhere. Infact I feel him standing next to me right now. This not something I need to share with people around me, however I chose to write it down only to substantiate that memories and moments are important. It is important to love people, get attached to them and feel their love. Money is important but not the most important. Money can buy only things but not emotions. Money can attract a girlfriend but it cannot transform her affection into a wife’s love. Money can buy kitchen equipments but cannot get your mother’s hand cooked dishes.

                                        

We have developed an insensitive tradition of using people and loving things. We snap all the ties for a piece of gold, if we get a chance to. Where is love, nowhere to be found in this fast pace world? If Adam had not fallen for Eve, we would not have been there only! I see people struggling and then they succumb to depression due to loneliness once they accumulate enough money in their accounts. We realize what we have lost only when it gets too late. In the autumn of life we are lonely and secluded because the spring was spent hoarding money rather than building relations. We quite surprisingly neglect the importance of sentiments and relationships in our life. Every now and then we see the old parents being abandoned once the offspring becomes financially able.

                                              

I have always been badly hurt by how materialistic we have become. We hide our emotions behind the pile of currency notes. We pseudo project our ego as our self esteem to break a bond. How fragile is our self proclaimed successful image. Don’t let your greed kill the human being in you. Cherish and nurture your emotions. Your children learn from you, if you leave your parents in oldage homes, you are likely to spend the evening of your life there only.

अति सर्वत्र वर्जयेत्

The title of my blog is a part of a Sanskrit Shloka which means Excess of Everything is Poisonous. I relate this to everything in life. Whether it is my personal life or professional or spiritual life. Whenever we indulge into something whether it is passion or self esteem or ambition or love, the time when we cross the threshold limit of the same we end up in a disaster.  I had read somewhere that Honey Bee's testicles explode when it has sex and it dies.

Man is responsible for his own destruction due to his own mistakes. A person who keeps himself in control is the one who is successful. The constant feedback I get is that I get hyper in times of crisis which means I lack emotional control (which is actually applicable to all spheres of my life), we need to keep ourselves in check if we want to do well in life. Always remember that there is only a thin line between confidence and over-confidence. 

When we accumulate a lot of knowledge and our pride swells up we actually turn towards the negative phase in life because the sense of accomplishment turns us into a rude and arrogant person. We are successful of we are intelligent yet humble which happens only when we strike a balance in life. As I keep saying we should not commodify our emotions. We always look for materialization of desires and of feelings. 

Our generation thinks that money is the parameter of success. Fame is the parameter of knowledge. Attention is the parameter of love. I say no! What you feel in your heart is the parameter of each and everything. Don't let desires, love,greed or lust rule your life. It leads you to complete destruction. 

We have this great habit of getting obsessed. Girls are obsessed with shopping (so are boys). Men are obsessed with cricket (some look only at Mandira Bedi though). My dear lovelies chuck obsession and hug sanity. Practise control. If you love someone don't go behind them like a dog, just let them be. If you want to accomplish something in life, work your ass off on weekdays but keep the weekends for your family and friends. You will someday buy a Mercedes, but do you see a point when you won't have a girlfriend or wife to take her on a long drive on a rainy evening. 

Don't go mad with things. Don't be a jerk. Excess of everything makes you loose out on the essentials and you end up living a life which you hate. I am sure you don't want to become a contemporary Ravan or Meena Kumari or whatever. No matter what you do, keep yourself in check. When you loose your temper, count backwards, calm down. When you love someone, don't suffocate them. If your are ambitious, don't become greedy or rather nasty and not even a machine please. 

Stay balanced, stay happy!

The Joy of being Numero Uno

Perfect is the key word of our lives these days. Technology, science, approach-wise, everything has to be perfect. If it is not, then it is trash for us. Perfection has become an obsession. A couple of days back one of my colleague was upset because his aspiration was to be perfect at work. Truly ambitious I must say. It is no where wrong to strive for perfection, rather it is fair enough in the world of cut throat competition. If you don't match up with the pace, you will be last in the race.

However, this hunger for perfection should be moderated with hints of breaks. We are not machines after all. Our focus should be on the learning curve. The means should be important than the ends.We must learn to strike a balance between unambitious and over-ambitious approach. We should keep challenging our capabilities but only to an extent where it keeps the flame within us burning. It should not destroy the magic of being alive and turn us into a success- hungry monstrous machine.

It is important to be on the top, however the journey to that top is also important and beautiful. While you climb the mountain, keep your mind on reaching the top, but also, stop for a while, look at the beauty of the landscape around you and keep it in your heart. Similarly, when you work towards perfection, put in your heart and soul in it, but also, take a small break, look around you, people are brimming with joy and love, spend a little time with them, share a smile with them and keep those moments in your heart, they will inspire you in times of failure because you never know, you might be all alone at the top.

I have always believed that strategies can never be formulated at once, they keep evolving. Similarly, perfection is also a state that keeps evolving, as with every new moment, a new aspect will be added, there will be a new challenge  a new lesson. So practically, we can never be perfect, we can only work towards achieving perfection. So one should realize that perfection is a relative term. We should keep on working, keep on learning, and refrain from the ultimate state of perfection. The reason is that once we start believing we are perfect, we become rigid, we don't want to learn or change. The feeling of complacency creeps in and results in a complete destruction altogether.

So I would rather say that when you embark on a journey towards a destination named PERFECTION, focus only on the path and not the final destiny if you want to be a dynamic and happy human being. The race for becoming numero uno is fun till the time you want to work towards becoming one, the moment you grab the title, the fun is over.

We The People

We are living in strange times. The time when we don't feel the need of self realization. The time when we don't build up visions and goals. Our entire generation is running madly after money without giving a second thought about the point that is Iphone 5 going to give us real happiness and satisfaction?

We pray only in the times of crisis and we put everything on the scale of trends. Our thought process is moulded and guided by the latest fashion. On republic day we become a patriot, on valentine's day we become Romeo and Juliet. The basic essence of life is missing. The passion to pursue dreams is missing.The willingness to learn and dedication towards goal has been replaced by compromises.

We run after skimpy girls to impress them, we laugh at the poor old disabled man to have fun, we damage the public property to show that we are cool, do we ever think beyond materialism? We protect a different personality in front of people, we explain ourselves to the people who hardly understand us.

The loud music that plays in our ipods has deafened us. We comfortably ignore the inner call and move on with our self centered motives. The question of the hour is that why are we so casual about ourselves, why do we refrain from analyzing and utilising our potential. I am amazed to know that most of us don't think about our goals, let alone working towards them. There are people who say goal setting is a boring and old fashioned thing.

It is sad to see that there are these people who don't get facilities and help and they still top the CA exam and on the other hand we have rich spoilt brats who can't even clear their engineering entrance exams as they are busy partying at their farmhouses.

And I am one among this big crowd of uncivilized youngsters. I don't say that we are all lost and disoriented, however a good number of people are.We need to come out of stupor and realise that we are responsible people and our generation has to lead the nation.  Why not channelise the energy in a direction which does good to all. Think about it, I do have a point here.

Life is phenomenal

How great it is to feel total silence when you sit with all lights off and a small candle burning and enlightening your room and your soul. Doesn't it sound grand and peaceful, so does our life. Life offers us so much every moment, we think, we hesitate, we ignore, we reject, but we hardly accept these small gifts of life.

Each morning life starts penning down a new chapter for us, we read, we check, we find mistakes, we correct and we finally reject the script, thinking that its again a bad day, again the same fight, again the same failure.

We find difficulties in life, we encounter, we face, we run, we loose and we accept the defeat. We don't fight till the last moment to taste the victory, we blame it to fate. We lack in effort but we don't see that. And what's wrong inn accepting a defeat when we can build on the courage to stand up again and  fight once more. But it is always easier to behave like cowards and accept the failure.

We hardly understand the beauty of life, we cry, we complain, we hate, we blame. Do we open our arms wide to welcome the new day with a new zeal? Do we thank ourselves before sleeping for the day which has left us with a couple of lessons. No, we don't do that because we don't want lessons, we want perfection. we don't want to fight  because we don't want failures, we love victories.

We need to realise that we are very lucky to be able to live this life and to be capable of learning from our mistakes.Today if you are victorious, cherish this moment for what you have accomplished, and if you have failed, learn from the defeat and gear up for another fight. Life is phenomenal, all you need is to open your heart and soul to accept it in totality.

Don't rape me, Respect me

We stepped into the new year with a grim face, thanks to the barbaric male fraternity for exhibiting their inhuman instincts on an innocent soul. This entire event turned very spicy for the political regime and they ended burning their fingers. How can anybody justify the series of events which took place right from the physical abuse to the cremation of the girl. Where have the human rights organisations vanished or they might still come forward to defend the death sentence (if at all it is the final verdict) for the accused. Everyone has been outrageous on this single incident. The media houses, the student councils, film stars, author, critics and even the common man has protested against such a heinous act. The question of the hour is that where were all of them when two people lay naked on the road battling against death. Why nobody cared to rescue them from the misery and shame on the roads of Delhi.

The girl lost her life, the family sobs in pain and there on the other hand a constable lost his life, a breadwinner for a family was gone and perhaps the conscience of the accused also passed away. This has put a question mark on women's safety, on the administration,on the police machinery, however the biggest question mark is on you and me. It is not about them, it is about us. Post this event, I have been living in a trauma. No matter how hard I try, am I safe? Will someone rape and kill me also? It is really safe when I am inside my house or even when I go out with some male member of my family. Who is going to ensure  that piece of security for me? These questions have been haunting my heart and soul.

Some chauvinists remarked that girls who crossed the line have to face the worse. I ask those shithead men that when a two year old girl is raped by her own father what line has been crossed and by whom? When a 60 year old lady is raped by her own grandson what line was crossed? Some said that girls should be stopped from wearing skirts as a part of school uniform. I ask those dumb heads that do they go and rape Hilary Clinton or Michelle Obama for the simple reason that they wear skirts. When a tribal women goes to police station to register a complaint and is raped by the inspector, was it because she was wearing a skimpy bikini.In that case all women should have been raped during Indus Valley civilization.

It is not about the clothes we put on, or about the hour at which we step out of home, rather it is in your brains dear perverts. A bollywood movie merrily portrays women as a mere commodity, the patriarchal society portrays women as a servant in the household. When a girl is raped, the girl has to be the one who is blamed, she should be the one to commit suicide. No one would rip off the genitals of the accused because men are supposed to be lusty, women should behave themselves. No one would ask the boy to respect the girl but would religiously teach girl to wear a dupatta all the time.

How far would we go with this hollow hypocrisy. Why can't the fundamentalists accept the fact that women are at par with men and command equal respect. Laws alone can never solve the problem, the change of mindset will definitely serve the purpose. 

They say I am abnormal!

Quite often I talk about learning procedure of life and surprisingly people quote my lines to me. The period of last 45 days has been a thorough tutorial for me in terms of restlessness. What I am trying to say is that my restlessness has taught me so much which I could not grasp from any book I have read. I never felt so weird and lost in my life (till date) as much as I felt in these 45 days.

I wonder who am I. A human being, attention seeker, fragile ego, stubborn attitude and loads of such attributes combine to sum up as me.I am a confused vehicle with instant road diversions who is unable to figure out the right path. I look for love in people around me but find no absolute destiny. I am stubborn but have no idea for what shall I fight for. People appreciate me but I have no idea what they want from me. I spend a major chunk of my time on shaping my career but I have no clue of the my mission of life. 

I studied my behaviour closely and found disastrous pointers. I saw I did not need anybody. I was not happy  when I had people around me and when I was alone, I was lost and while people were around me, I kept silent and was still lost All I experienced was disappointment and sadly I did not know what was disappointing me. All  I wanted from life was to be alone and when I was alone, I felt lonely.

I could hardly find peace in any thing.This feeling was exactly what we feel at a road crossing where thousands of fast moving vehicles are around us and we are unable to move. I felt so irritated by that heavy traffic that I wanted to be hit by some vehicle and finish the story in one go.

First I felt that it was all due to work pressure and I am unable to strike a work-life balance which was not true as I was disturbed and lost on weekends also. Then I thought that it was because of the fact that I miss my dear ones as they don't have time for me, but that was also not true as I felt lonely in their presence and mostly ended up fighting with them and taking the blame that I am ignoring them. 

Was that my ego or immaturity or incompetency? No that was not the cause. Was it my stubborn attitude, no it was not. Then what was troubling me? People said I am a complex person and at times they even said I was abnormal. Was it so? No, I am not sure. I know I am unique, but abnormal? I ended up consoling myself that nobody understands me, nobody accepts me with my flaws, they want to change me. The actual story was that I do not understand myself and am unable to accept my flaws and shortcomings. Although I am still thinking.

The sad part of the story is that I am continuing to live in that state right now also, where I am a lost person, I need no one and I know nothing, trying to figure out what I want from life. If you have a clue, please enlighten me.