Captain (Dr.) Rajshree Gupta, Army Medical Corps (AMC), salutes the tricolour-draped coffin of her husband, Major Vivek Gupta of the 2nd Rajputana Rifles, who died fighting the enemies at kargil.
Thats how to handle what life throws at you with strength and dignity
1. Figure out where your wanna go in life. Fast.Dont wait.
Frustration will grow if the actions you take are not coherent with the dreams you hold on to
2. People are different.
While that seems like a self-evident truth the impact of it is not visible until you actually live away from from home. Even though i'm not far away from home i now realise that not everyone is like me. There are fundamental differences in the way people think, act and in the things they believe. People from pune are not similar to people from other cities. Same goes for people from chennai and bangalore. This causes you to ironically be aware of what you like and what you want.I imagine this effect must be magnified for those not living in India now.
3. Life gets complicated after college.
Things arent simple any more. Why that is i'm not sure, but i'm sure it is so
4. Don't Trust people with everything you have until you've actually seen them go through a hard time or have been through one with them
I used to trust completely before, but unfortunately now i reserve my complete trust for only a select few. When the tough times come, people wilt, strong relationships shatter, and people choose to walk away rather than grit their teeth and get through it. Everyone really does seem to be in it only for themselves
5. Life isn't fair at all
What you deserve really is not too much bother to anyone else. Simply because they're busy wanting what they want. So you have to ask for what you want, and you have to grab for it.
6. The only exams you have to give are the ones you CHOOSE to give
While that should have been the norm from the start, now you only go the way you want to go. Nobody is forcing you to do anything with your life. Ironically it forces you to ask what you want and then go for it. I imagine thats how the system should have been designed in the first place.
7. Life is difficult but rewarding because your standing on the shoulders of giants.
Will explain when i write the next post.
8. Just because the coffee is free doesnt mean you have to drink tons of it. :-)
9. A vehicle is an absloute must!
10.The bed that you sleep on must be comfortable. Absolutely.
11. You CAN make extremely good friends even if you dont share common interests.
12. Many People in IT companies really have nothing to do except crib. And forward mails :P
13. When things fall apart they do so spectacularly.Life goes on. Run with it. Roll with the puches. Tomorrow is another day.
I recieved this mail recently... It's been circulating around all the IT companies for a while now.
Have a read
I would like to express my transition from real freedom to assumed freedom. I am here talking about my transition from my college to the booming IT industry. I would like to pour my one year experience of the so called glamorous and fun filled IT industry.
We used to wander those spacious heat filled open grounds and dirty class rooms with just 50Rs. in pocket and plan the whole week with that budget. But now we wander along the well cleaned, fully air-conditioned corridors with about five to six credit cards in our pocket planning where to swipe the cards. Credit cards eagerly waiting to eat next month's salary. I can't believe that it was just one year before that the 50Rs. seemed to be lacks now, lacks seems to be nothing.
College canteen, Tea shops were the favorite hot spots where we spent hours together, having a hearty chat with our buddies forgetting the whole world. But now Cafe Day, Quickies, Baristas have taken those places. What a coffee cost 2.5Rs last year has now gone up to 50Rs a cup.
Those precious days where we used to laugh for nothing, while chatting or while playing or even when you fail in your paper because you have got 30 marks for a empty paper. But now you rarely smile except the smile for the forward you just received or the smile to your PM to impress him.
Hate ness and Ego were the words you haven't heard in those days. You smash or hit your friend for some reason and the next moment you walk along him with hands on his shoulders. But now you doesn't like the guy sitting beside you because he's getting a salary 10k greater that you or he's always being appreciated by your PM. True friends are hard to find here
In college if some one is talking badly about your college you can find your blood boiling inside even though you don't like your principal. But here loyalty is the lost word, whenever someone is talking badly about your company you join them to criticize your company. You join the company with the resignation day in the mind, is this loyalty. Don't mind I have also planned my resignation date.
You have seen the late nights only on the eve of the exam, where you rely on your friend to wake him/ her at night 1 or 2. And how can we forget those last minute tensions in exam, you remember that only just before entering the exam you find that you have forgotten to revise a important question that your friend suggested that it will surely appear on this exam. You rush back and flip those Xeroxed pages with tension. But today you work at least 2 days a week till 1 or 2 in the night to deliver something to your unknown client who is at US or UK. You are aimlessly typing at the useless word document that your PM asked you to finish with his tailor made smile. Loads of tension with calls from home, with your eye lids eager to kiss each other and you promise them to allow it a little later, cursing Bill Gates for inventing MSWord.
Writing all these to celebrate my first anniversary at this field. It seems I have been in my own desert where I have realized that I am moving from the warmth ness of the Oasis to chase a mirage. A mirage that promises a lot of thing, but still its just a mirage. When I turn back I can find thousands chasing that mirage with a ID card around their neck. I wish all the best for them.
I feel really sick reading these sorta mails. This is my response to that
1. You used to roam around with 50 bucks and you were happy. Now you have six credit cards and your not. Your blaming your job for that. It's called growing up. Get over it. And i dont have six credit cards. I dont even have one. No one asked you to get a credit card and if you got one, the try purchasing the brains to use it as well.
2. You had tea for 2.5 rs but it costs 50 at barista? So what . Go eat where you want. Nobody told you to go to barista just because you work in IT. It's called consumer choice.
3. You smiled once. You don't now. Awww.. your life is sad. If your job makes you so sad then quit. Everyone loved getting through exams by studying at the last minute. Unfortunately it works ONLY in college. So get over it.
4. Company gossip.... jesus.
5. You loved doing work only for one night in a semester. Now because you have to work more than once in a week you're complaining. In the real world people have to give it everything everyday to succeed, because if you dont then someone else WILL.
BALLS i hate this crap. Blame everyone else for your life..... culture
Don't let your enthusiasm wane, a virtue as valuable as it is necessary; work, have aspirations, and shoot always for the moon... there where only the CHAMPIONS tread.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish
My post bachelorism received a good response. So i thought I'd try and write a few more instances which showcase the apathy with which bachelors live sometimes .The perfect day was this last Saturday.It all started on Friday night when me and my roommate decided to go watch spider man-3 once and for all. We hadn't gotten tickets for the last two weeks and decided to be "Proactive" and do something about it. So we decided that come hell or high water we would watch the web-slinger on the big screen.So we go to sleep on Friday pretty proud of ourselves because of the fact that we actually made a decision.We would leave the house at 12 noon( in Chennai heat no less) and catch a 2.30 show hopefully.
Well Saturday morning came and we got up at 9.30 cos it got too hot to sleep. Now for the first time since we moved to Chennai me and my roommate decided that we'd go for a haircut just after we got up. We've NEVER ( i mean that) taken a decision that fast. We get up and realise that there is NO electricity. The heat has already started to irritate us now and having no fan is making me sweat like i was working at a blast furnace.Undeterred by the bad start to the day, me and friend go off and get a haircut . We're back home at 11 now and 1 hour to go.We decide to have a bath. There's only one problem. There's no water in the overhead tank!. Oh crap. Even so, all we have to do is switch on the motor which pumps water to the tank. But there's no God damn ELECTRICITY!!... so now we've both had a haircut and we're getting that feeling which you get just after you get a haircut and before having a bath. YUCK.Plus we're sweating in the heat... Now I'm really ticked off not to mention itchy.. it's 11.30.
I'm hungry too. So we decide to have something to eat so that if we're stuffing our faces we won't be cribbing so much. There's no milk, no bread and no damn BUTTER. i mean Come on! really. All the planets have really aligned today. We're really lazy i know but do we deserve such a magnitude of punishment?? :P. Damn you Murphy and damn your laws too.It's 12 now.
We decide to have lunch. We use a 20 litre can of water that we buy for 25 bucks for drinking purposes. We realise that today there's almost no water left.(of course there's no water TODAY) So we ask the guy who helps us to get another one. He says there are NO cans left. This pushes my mental state from "Ticked off" to " Really Pissed off". In case you can't keep up with all the tragedies till now, here's a recap :- we're itchy cos of the haircut, sweaty because apparently the Electricity board wants to show us what the stone ages were like, we're hungry because we're lazy and we have no water to either EAT OR BATHE. The best part is that if we hadn't had a haircut I'd have just gone for the movie without having a damn bath. But now i can't do that. So much for being PROACTIVE :P
My room mate decides that he'll make some Dal. But in keeping with the theme for the day we don't have enough water to actually make the Dal or any rice. We're almost going mental at this point. Suddenly a light bulb glows above my head and i realise we have 3 eggs in the fridge. Oh yeah. My roommate proceeds to make the omlette look like a masala dosa but who gives a crap. We eat like cavemen eating for the first time. We don't even have enough water to wash our hands properly.Then like the light at the end of the tunnel our helper guy shows up with a Can of Water!! oh yeah i almost decide to give him another 10 bucks. Yeah well almost. So now we have water to drink so we drink a lot just in case we wont' get any later. You never know ...the way this day is going.
When the options run out, everyone comes up with solutions. That's what happened. Now we've at least taken care of our food and drinking water situation partially. But we cant get to the movie till we have a damn bath. It's 2 now. We can still catch the show at 4 if we leave now. For the first time in my life i haven't had a bath even FOUR hours after a haircut.So i come up with a solution Einstein would be proud of (hehe). We buy ANOTHER CAN OF WATER FOR 25 BUCKS SO WE CAN BATHE WITH THE WATER!! How creative is that??? I swear we couldn't believe we're paying 25 bucks for a bath. But NECESSITY SABKI MAA HOTI HAI.So we did. I take the sanitized, triple purified( or whatever) water and fill one "balti" full so i can have a bath. I've never had a bath with such "pavitra pani" but now i feel as fresh as i can ever feel.I Check on my roommate and he's taken our creativity one step further. I had commented in the morning that freezer had so much ice formed that we couldn't put any bottles in it.So he decided CHIP OFF ALL THE ICE AND PUT IN THE BUCKET SO HE CAN HAVE A COLD WATER BATH.!!!That way even the freezer is clear or ice!. Damn. That really was something to see.So we were ecstatic. We went to see the movie. I didn't like it at all.. The review is maybe the next post.
Anyways that was really the day... i don't really know how to even end this.
Over the last 2 years i have managed (somehow) to lose about 12 kgs of weight doing regular exercise..I have also managed to keep it off for the last six months not having exercised at all. While I'm not close to my ideal weight and still plump I'm pretty fit. A few friends have asked how i lost weight. They commented saying that "You have a lot of discipline".
The word discipline has got me thinking a lot. Over the years the word discipline has been battered into our brains by every adult figure that we know. The word suggests that you become adept at doing all those things (on time) that you actually don't want to do. I think of myself as lazy and indisciplined to the core. This is why when friends tell me that i have "discipline" i laugh straight back at them. I feel discipline (as it is perceived now) is an ugly word. Achievement has precious little to do with discipline and a lot to do with enthusiasm. I never go running or to the gym because i want to but because i LIKE to. That's it. That's all. That's the only reason. I don't get up and force myself to go. I look forward to it. Some people call that discipline. I call it following your heart. I'm not going trekking everyday to lose weight because i don't enjoy it as much as i do running.
This extends to all the areas of life i guess. The ones who study a lot may seem to have discipline but really they are doing what they WANT to do. It's not that they don't want to party away their lives, but that they want to do something and achieve something MORE than they want to party all the time. Ironically the only place u have to force yourself to do something is at school or college where your forced to learn some irrelevant subjects :-)
The thing is when some friends ask me what sort of exercise they should do to lose weight i tell them to do something they like. Play badminton or basketball or something. Sounds simple and it is. If someone doesn't like the gym why do they persist in going? You only end up quitting and feeling worse. I'm not really an achiever but I'm blessed to have some very ambitious and hard working friends. As i look at them i realise that they re good at those things which NATURALLY appeal to them. That's it. They all have off days but what gets them back doing it is just the fact that if they don't do it they can't live with themselves.
So i guess if u don't LIKE it, don't do it.
Ahh yes i feared that someday my present living conditions would reach the those shambolic levels of laziness that i would find it really funny to write about it. I live with three other bachelors. Maybe that's enough information for anyone. In case you don't read the rest of this post you can be comforted in the knowledge that all the cliches about bachelors that you've heard are all absolutely true. All those who are intent on wasting their life's moments can read on.
Hmmm where does one start. I think ill start with the fact that the house in a 2BHK row house with a multiple level terrace. The terrace allows for very relaxing beer drinking sessions on Saturday evenings. Usually these nights entail four bachelors venting their frustrations at generally everything that goes on in their life. That's the good news. Now comes the bad news. Well we can't start the bad news without a special mention to the ants and the dead cockroaches that inhabit our home. They live amongst us and enjoy a very nice comfortable stay while we pay their rent. The water we drink very often has ants (and their families) taking a nice swim
to save themselves from the heat. Dead cockroach wings can be found in many places since we kill the cockroaches and the ants eat everything leaving the wings. In essence we have a symbiotic relationship with them.
On every window and door we find that cobwebs have found a comfortable home, one they know will never be disturbed. Even the bedsheets that now serve as curtains have learnt to live with the cobwebs. Dust and dirt are everywhere, most notably changing the colour of the fan to what maybe now an indescribable colour. I'm not sure what the fan colour was originally.
The TV lies on the floor in a pocket of dust which of course will never be cleaned because we only clean dirt which is directly in line of sight. The washing machine has a unique position right next to the kitchen sink. So the same water that we use to wash our 'bartans' is the same that washes our clothes. The water after washing proceeds to directly flood our veranda. This has had a unique effect that plants i.e. weeds have started to grow right in the middle of the veranda thanks to the detergent rich output from the washing machine.
The switchboard for one the bedrooms lies out of it's socket exposing wires to anyone who doesn't like his life anymore ( i just sweeped of four ants off the computer table..). I've failed to mention that clothes lie everywhere since that is the only way we can keep track of where they are. So now my pants lie right next to my books for easy access. All the shaving equipment lies right on top of the fridge. I did buy a bulb (in January) because my bathroom light was out. I haven't fixed it yet...so i just have a bath in the dark at night. Next to my bed lies a bottle of water which was filled the last time when my old roommate moved out in November. I'm still not lazy enough to drink that water though.One of the bathrooms is dirty as hell. Thank god i use the one that's pretty clean.
Beer bottles lie in most areas of the house particularly on the roof. The only thing outnumbering it are the number of milk bottles. No wait the plastic bags and associated kachra outnumbers that too... We try to shove the all of it under the stairs...unsuccessfully of course...
Well that's as much that can really be said about home sweet home. Thank god nobody visits.
Reading a book opens your mind. Since each book is a reflection of the thoughts of the author each book represents a window into the mind of a great person.
I'm working at my first job and and on the bad days you start to wonder why you're doing it. This is where the conflict between experience and achievement comes in.
As students we all want to achieve great things. We hold the belief that the ideas we are having are the ones that will change the world. Having read about great thinkers and visionaries reinforces that belief. When you get to working you start to realise that the time you spend away from work is very important i.e the your personal life.
This usually is the precursor to the thoughts that are the reason for this post. In the age of hyper achievement how much do you want to achieve and how much do you want to experience in life. Now in no way am i saying you can't have both at the same time but these two are usually at least semi-exclusive. I realise that judging by achievement makes the world a not so happy place. We love the Bill gates and the Micheal Jordans but we also adore those that spend their life travelling and seeing the world. You love it when you win on your own strength but you also love it when you just sit on the sidelines and shout yourself to a sore throat supporting your favourite team.
Living away from home and away from friends and family allows for a "sunlight through a lens" type focus towards your work but doesn't allow you to experience life the way you might otherwise. These of course are thoughts that are fleeting yet each time they leave a small footprint in your head. These footprints get deeper with each "thought instance" until they have a constant presence of your mind. Of course I'm presenting only the negatives but not the the numerous positives like personal growth, new friends and experiencing a cultural richness that is different from your own
The last paragraph was digressing from the topic i realise but it was a practical example of Achievement V Experience. i guess if i can hazard an answer it would be that you have to know yourself well enough to know what trade off your willing to give. In the end it's all about your happiness. One of my roommates has very little desire to spend his life in high pressure jobs (even if they pay a lot). While some time ago, i would have perceived this lack of ambition as disgusting , now I'm at peace with it. He's happy and maybe that's all that matters. He'd rather experience the bliss of a happy family life with holidays and time spent travelling rather then spend nights awake achieving and earning. And i don't blame him.
So make up your mind as to what brings you happiness because not all of us will change the world.
So you can be smart as hell or just stick your tongue out at the whole seriousness of life
Life is pretty shitty sometimes, that's clear. Sometimes you just start wonndering what the hell went wrong.Everything falls apart and jus lies there in peices, the broken mirror lies shattered on the floor and and you find yourself staring at thousands of timy images that form in those millions of pieces each one representing a little part of what used to be.
This is a critical moment in life , one where opinions are formed and decisions made that will get very hard to erase. This is the point in life where making sense makes no sense...the time where your head tries to rationalize everything it hears and your heart refuses to see it and also gets pissed off at all the "correct" reasons it sees
It' s happened to me and a couple of friends i know.
When things fall apart you decide once and for all never to be so stupid and trust your heart...From now on your head will rule and your heart will obey. So you become harder and stronger and now more ready to take on the cruel world outside
The problem with making sense here is taking the risk of emotionally alienating yourself from everthing that you face. I've felt and been through it and it's an "emotionally-deaf" time that does not help.The fact is that the head should be a servant to the heart but not a slave..(but a servant none the less)
We learn from our mistakes, but what if you learnt wrong. Youll make a different mistake, a worse one but that's the risk you run.
SO Run the risks, and when you get hurt and life shatters into a million pieces, dust yourself and be determined to make some of the same mistakes again...because what may look like a mistake may be just ONE bad experience...like steve jobs said "stay stupid"...
Over the years you start to make conclusions about the world that help you to get better at what you're doing, give you insight on what you're not and generally help you grow up
I share some of my theories.....
My theory for everything and nothing
1. People are more afraid of success than they are of failure
All your life you’ve been told to fit in. Join the clubs…Get the friends…Well that’s all fine…but when it comes to success it’s a hindering quality to have. Success usually means that someone is exceptional and many are average. That’s what most people fear. Not that they’re average but that they’re exceptional.
Q: - “Can u pass that exam?”
Ans:- “Probably not. Most everyone fails it” (why I should I pass it since everyone else is probably like me. Most of the time I’ve been like everyone else)
2. Independent thinking is very rare
No one takes the effort to think anymore do they? WHY? WHY? That question is what we should be asking rather than looking for the answers. The thinking prevalent is that since everyone is doing it, it probably makes sense and I shouldn’t waste my time thinking about it. When you start to ask why?..... most of the walls break down and you begin to see that many existing systems are totally inefficient..
Like Einsein said:- “Every new achievement requires a break from the existing system of thought”( I think that’s what he said)
The biggest impact may be in business…Everyone thought that 9 to 5 was the best timing to work…now the fact is that flexible timings are the most productive….so someone mustn’t have accepted his 9 to 5 timing blindly
3. The School System is half complete
So u know how electrons work, how the human body works, how the universe and god knows what else works…The premise is that it’ll help u to get a better job and earn more money. They taught you how to earn your money…but they never taught you how to keep it…there's very little taught about how to save your money and how to invest…I finished 16 years of education not knowing what inflation is? When I saw that ad in which it says that a world tour costs 1 lac now but will cost 20 lacs in 20 years(partly because of inflation ) I realized why financial planning is so difficult….. it can be argued that commerce students learn all this….But even arts and science students earn money and grapple with all these issues…let’s face it….money is usually the biggest issue of anyone’s life….unless you’re a royal family heir you’re gonna have money issues. So teach me how to keep my money. It’s as important as how to make it.
All women are beautiful.
The Saree is the most beautiful dress a lady can wear. The salwar kameez comes second
The Human race is trying to unlearn most of what it’s learnt throughout it’s history
This is more true now…
Some other things I’ve noticed that are really petty
a.It’s never a question of I.Q in most situations…it’s usually a problem of not spending enough TIME trying to understand the problem
b.No matter how you put your earphones in ur bag or pocket when u finish listening the next time you pull them out they’ll be a twisted tangled mess…(is there a murphy’s law for this!!?? )
So there you have it...My two cents...The two or three people who read this blog :-) can post a comment i hope....
I realized while I was reading something that it is virtually impossible to get into the mind of another. How many times have you heard the line ‘Look at it from their side’.
Well, I realized recently that this may be one of the most difficult things a mind can achieve.
‘Looking at the other side’ doesn’t mean wondering why one guy likes strawberry ice cream and you like another flavour. It refers to some things that we hold as absolute beliefs, the unshakeable concretes that have formed in our minds, those which many would not have consciously defined, but ALL use to guide their life for better or worse.
We are in the free world, terrorists are the enemy, and we are right. Would anyone care to see the other side? (btw I am on our side…before my friends start to wonder what has happened)
My point here is that it’s not a good thing to always ‘look at the other side’. Everyone can think and feel, but our actions are definite and they define us. Looking at every side sometimes puts too much doubt in your head to take any decision, any action.
When someone comes late to a meeting, looking at the other side is a good idea because you may get a logical reason for it’s occurrence but the prevalent ‘accept everything and everyone’ philosophy is counter-productive to your progress.
As long as a choice of another doesn’t physically harm or cause mental torture it’s ok to think about the other side. I love rock music, I didn’t like hindi music(now I do) and I used to run around criticizing those who did.
Well, now I avoid this type of discussion , because what’s ‘Kewl’ and what’s not is everyone’s choice and they have a right to it.
There’s no necessity to see the other side.
We all believe that our opinions are our own and that no one really influences them. If i like a particular type of music , art or movie then I’ve asked for no one’s permission to do so and i fiercely defend my right to an opinion. Well that's a really nice thought but i feel a most everyone (me included) have a few "opinions" made for us.
The other day me and my friends sat down to watch a Hindi movie. Now it just so happens that of one of us happens to HATE the lead actor of that movie but decided to watch regardless since the group was watching. As the movie began to tell it's tale he began the usual berating and criticizing which is the norm of every would-be movie critic.
The movie itself really was average fare, nothing much to talk about but the constant cynicism for the lead actor was starting to irritate me. Just as I was about to say something, one of the other friends, who really has no opinion on the lead actor proceeded to proclaim that the actor was crap, the movie in turn was crap and so it was a waste of time.
I wanted to say something but held back the urge and decided to just notice what happened next.
Well as i said the influence started to spread until even those who seemed to be half-enjoying the movie started to proclaim that they hated it
It's curious to notice that if you scream loud enough, stupid people will love to get into the act. I proceeded to say that the movie was OK. I promptly was told that i know "Nothing" of movies or acting.
Scream loud enough and you can influence people .Again and Again.Jeez.......
Life is cruel lots of times.That isn't a pessimistic view, but a realistic one. The basic presumption is that life is supposed to be full of happiness.What if the basic plan is not that way? What if suffering is as much a part of life as happiness? maybe more? The thing is no one's promised us that....it's taken for granted....I've read somewhere that "life is Suffering" is one of the rules of buddha...not sure of that though....
Actually the thought that life is not all about happiness is quite comforting. Once you accept it , it's easy not to get frustrated, to take the hardhships as challenges, not worry so much.This thought has helped me quite a bit over the past few months, hectic training, washing, clothes and long travelling distances included.
For the big tests, ive not worried as much, only focused on what's ahead. I've learnt to take hardship as a challenge,to not allow yourself to be broken by them, to understand that these things never get harder and that you do.
Once you know, You win.Believe it
Ever feel like jumping off, letting go of everything and soaring.I feel it everyday of my waking life. No i'm not some bored dude writing code all day not happy with his life...no i like my work, i accept where i live and the state my life is in. After all, i've made my choices and i dont regret a single one. Once in a while though, i feel like i wanna let go and run.Run till my legs fall off, till i cant breathe.This isn't because i wanna run away from my life, it's because i want it to go faster.Life's too slow sometimes, you get stuck going so slow down life's highway that you wanna tare away all those "rules" and "barriers" and run free.
I'm not sure how many will understand what it is i wanna say but i hope a few will realise that these feelings lie in you. I usually get this feeling whenever i'm standing for a bus or a train and it's jus not coming. I get it when i'm sitting for a lecture which starts to drag.The feeling of wasting your life on the inconsequential is irritating. I mean , as it is life's short, so wasting it doing things that are of no use is irritating. If you analyzed it , there'd be so many things you'd discard doing because it's inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
I don't know how many have felt it, but whenever i'm going in the train and it's really fast , i feel like jumping off. NO ,not because im suicidal but because i'd love the adrenaline rush, the feeling of flying,. soaring freely for even jus a sec.
It's the reason why i will ,even if it's only once, go skydiving.The feeling of no ground beneath and nly sky above would be spectacular...
Run for just one minute, it's better than walking all your life.
Fly for just one second, it's better than running all your life.
Cast off, Jump off..
