Celebrating Love…

Love is in the air… You can always feel it around Valentine’s Day. There is so much excitement and preparations going around you… Everything you see in a store is red or heart shaped… Stores give discounts for couples. Rom-com movies are released. Flyers of prom nights and parties are all over the place… so what if you don’t have that special someone to celebrate this day with?

I always used to argue that Valentine’s Day is not just about enjoying with your soul mate (easily read as husband, boy friend or that cute guy I met last Sunday). It’s a day to celebrate with all your loved ones.

I used to make it a point to thank all my loved ones… Amma – If anyone says there’s no such thing as selfless love, I send them to her; Shankar – I wonder how he can even tolerate me after knowing me for such a long time and my friends – my pride.

This year most of them are away. Far far away… I can still thank them by sending presents. Can call them and wish. Yes, communication has been made much easier… but whatever technology does, I still can’t hug my friends, box with my brother or sleep on my mum’s lap whenever I want to.

Then I ask myself… Why? Though I am surrounded by people here why does my heart reach out and crave for only those handpicked bunch? Why do I want to celebrate LOVE with them? Is that what LOVE means?

They say LOVE is blind. I wonder if it’s true. This love, for a few people in the world, makes us indifferent towards most people and wants to even hate some others. Every human being has the capacity to love… and everyone loves some one or the other… but most usually spend all their lives loving this select bunch of people to their maximum capabilities and forget about the rest of the world.

The Mumbai local train ladies compartment is a nice example. Men usually make fun of the ladies compartment as it is most notorious for its fights though it’s less crowded than the men’s compartment. Men claim that even in the unmanageable crowd, men are at harmony with each other while women find it difficult to co-operate. Have you wondered why? Why women, who are compared with the earth for their tolerance level, become irritated so quickly and have such nasty fights while travelling?

Each woman in the ladies compartment has the same thought process going on in her brain: God! Take me home as quickly as possible. Hopefully that Shanta bai did come today. “Aage jagah nahi hai madam. Mujhe bhi Kurla hi uttarna hai. Abhi time hai.” What do I make for dinner? There was a little bit of bhendi left… will it be enough? Okay, will mix it with potatoes. “Arre baba, dhakka kaiko maarta hai? Bola na jagah nahi hai” Rahul has to submit that science project tomorrow! I still have to teach Radhika ‘O palanhare!’ for the competition next week. O god! How am I gonna manage? “Ek aur baar dhakka maara na ek kaan ke neeche baja ke doongi. Kya samajhti kya hai tu khudko haan? Sab log khade hi hai na……..”

When it comes to home, she doesn’t care if she has to slog like a slave, she will do it all. Coz she loves them. But when it comes to a stranger, she can’t bear being even touched. I am not being a feminist, but for the amount of sacrifice she does, she never gets what she deserves… All she gets is Wapas wahi bhindi banaya… Mum, that’s not what the teacher taught, you don’t know anything… I don’t like that song; I want to sing ‘mind blowing maahiya’

And we read about people who kill for love. The guy is insanely in love with this girl, but she loves someone else. He tries everything possible to win her back and finally ends up killing himself, or the other guy or even the girl he loved so much.

Why does love go so wrong then? Why is this beautiful thing for which we all long for go against us? If it works people say “Waah, Kya love story hai!”, if it doesn’t its tears and bitterness.

We misunderstand the whole purpose of love… We feel it, appreciate it, enjoy it, share it but we want to keep it to ourselves. We make the mistake of trying to capture it. We also share this beautiful thing with only a few hundreds or thousands from among the billions who are out there. We disturb the equilibrium. We cause an unbalance and then we swing like the pendulum. It takes us really high at first. It gives us all the happiness and comfort and we feel its reality and it’s all going right. Then the pendulum swings back. That’s when we get the jolt. We don’t understand what’s happening. How could things which seemed so real suddenly vanish? And we then realize that we have alienated ourselves from the rest of the world.

Love doesn’t teach that. It tries to teach a lesson to everyone who does that by swinging them back to reality but most never learn the lesson. They still like the ride upwards and become ready to pay the price of coming back down and getting hurt just for the kicks of going up.

On this Valentine’s Day, I want to make a resolution that I’ll try to love everyone impartially and equally and try to learn the meaning of this beautiful 4 letter word.

Love All, Serve All – Swami

Trying my best

Sangeetha

HUGE

HUGE

Just like any thing that can to be accomplished, HUGE also is a thing. Definition of HUGE may however vary. HUGE may be a loser in love trying to have a stable relationship or a beggar aiming to be a millionaire. All of us have something HUGE in our life; a goal which seems impossible to achieve. We get intimidated by the prospect of the process that needs to be followed to achieve the HUGE. Thousands of doubts gush into our tiny heads. We doubt our capabilities since we have never come across something as HUGE as our goal, ever before in our life. We lack the experience of walking the path.

I was wondering whether the successful don’t fear the HUGE. I believe that even the most successful person would have been intimidated by the thought of HUGE, long before he was successful. But what the successful person did was fight the fear. Howsoever HUGE the huge may be, the basics to achieve HUGE is still the same as the basics to achieve any short term goal. Lets take an example; Assume that today you don’t know how to invest in the IPO in the Indian stock market. But you would like to invest in it. So what will be the first thing you will do? You may surf the net, call the person who knows the operation of IPO, take some professional help, etc. Any action that you take will be towards gaining more information about the process. But you will have to take the step. The very important first step; once you take this first step you will be able to take next step; It’s like a treasure hunt; First step will lead you to the next clue and then the cycle continues. Before you even realize you start enjoying the process. You want to finish the current step so that you can move towards the next step. As excitement increases, the fear disappears since the mental energy is focused towards achieving the goal and not towards the fear. However the quest of HUGE involves a lot of perseverance, mainly because the numbers of steps are more. Midway through the journey one cannot afford to be frustrated. Every step may need to be performed multiple number of times before completing it successfully. It doesn’t take courage or any rocket science to achieve something HUGE. All it takes is performing the tiniest steps correctly and following the sequence of steps. If you try to jump you will fail; If you don’t walk, you will get stagnated. All you need to do is concentrate on current step.

The process is similar to use case diagrams. Before making the project what we do is decide what we want to do; Once the question is answered all the energy is given to finish each step sequentially. HUGE is the “what”. Once HUGE is discovered, all we need to do is follow one step at a time and we will reach the goal. If the readers know their HUGE, then take the first step; rest will follow.

Why?

Hey Jay and everyone who actually is making an effort to read this… Jay explained his reason why he wants to write this blog…

I am still thinking why I need this blog.

To express my emotions…? I have so many close friends with whom I can share everything, who can very well serve as an emotional platform.

Then why am I doing this?

Trying to put my thoughts in order may be… but they are too random… too disoriented… if I write whatever comes to my mind I can fill pages and still not reach any conclusion.

I am in this country which is known for its fast life. Not that I used to live a very simple life in Mumbai but this place has made me run at an exponential rate. I have been in and out of relationships (For goodness’s sake! There are other relationships in this world too… :P ) Made close friends quick and lost them even quicker. Somehow, started feeling too shallow.

I saw my old friends change. Heard my friends say such stuff about me too. Some say I have changed. Some say I have grown. Some say I am in a transition stage.

I have reached a stage where this constant thing called change is freaking me out. It has started touching my roots and shaking me from within. That’s when I realized I need to go back and redo my foundations. I needed something to help me get in touch with myself.

But again… why blogging?

Jay and I used to meet every once in a while to try and make sense out of our lives. We went for long walks but the usual meeting point was DP’s in Matunga. I used to feel fresh, my brain used to feel rejuvenated similar to how you feel when you take a bubble bath on a very hot day.

Now I know why I am doing this.

I am just recycling my thoughts and giving my brain a mental exercise. Hope you guys make any sense out of what I write…

Love

- Sangeetha

Goal

When I wake early in the morning only thing on mind is to go to office and achieve the tasks for the day. When I come home at 8 pm in the evening, my mind is totally drenched. Somehow I muster energy to study for GMAT. GMAT is the first step towards realizing my goal in my life-MBA in USA. There are so many goals that I have-long term, short term, mid term goals. Somehow the life is full of the dreams; Dreams which propel me to try and give my best; everyday…

A force in me keeps telling that I should keep working. But then various enemies come in the way of the achieving what I wish to. Sometimes negativity bogs me down. Self doubt creeps in; a doubt about my ability. Do I have it in me to achieve what it takes? Do I have that courage, that stamina that intelligence? Will plain hard work see me through? Why is developing aptitude such a difficult activity? Why are others more gifted than I am?

Every day I visualize myself in the MBA class amidst many students who come from various countries, who have different mother tongues and who follow different religions. I see myself engaged in a healthy discussion with them. I see myself discussing sports, weather, politics, economy etc. Though I have not done any research on the B schools that I would like to be in; though I don’t know what I am going to specialize in, though I don’t know the economic impact of 2 year program on me, I nurture a dream. It is this single force of ambition which has to fight against all the negativity. It’s a battle that everyday I fight with myself. But I believe that my ambition has far greater energy than negativity.

Every night when I study the GMAT, it seems that I have hired one new employee in my Ambition’s company. Every night when I sleep, I feel that today I have taken a tiny step towards my destination; A destination which is very far today; Perhaps not even on the horizon. But I know I am walking in correct direction. This is where my friends play a very important role. Not only do friends appreciate me when I am going in right direction, they also try to cripple the negativity. I mean it does make a lot of sense in having friends and family on one’s side. As it is the goal in itself is magnanimous in proportion, one doesn’t want to waste energy in other things.

Today I am writing after many months. Today I am starting a BLOG with my very dear friend Sangeetha. Though she is in US pursuing her dream…her goal, I hope she contributes to this weekly BLOG. The above paragraphs might not reveal the creativity in me nor my skill of making stories or writing convincing articles, but writing about my current state of mind is equally essential. If I compare my writing to iron than I can say that my ability has caught some rust. By writing the above lines I have removed the rust and hopefully in times to come I will write many interesting articles.

Things that will be posted on this BLOG will include anything and everything that Sangeetha and I feel. This place will serve as a platform for our emotions, our feelings, our aims, our ambitions, our stories, our fantasies; this place will be free of any restriction on thoughts. I hope that I do regularly update this blog with focus on MBA goal, my crushes, my fears, my successes and everything on earth on which I have an opinion about….

- Jay