Materialism !!

I enjoy reading newspaper these days because its full Anna Hazare and our fight against corruption, but something stuck me today while reading one of the Anna's interview. He was asked that he never got married and had children and would he advise the youth of today to do the same, to which he replied "No never. Today's youth should get married and have children. They should live a good life and should never support wrong. The only concern I have against families is that it makes the man selfish and he behaves as 'I don't care if your beard is on fire but I want my bidi'". This statement from him made me think if families really make us selfish and if so how. It wasn't very tough to answer when I looked inside of me.

Today almost all of us are piled with garbage of hunger for money, authority, promotion, thousands of emi's lined up every month, big cars, 2-3 bhk's with big extra balconies, etc etc. And of course I am no different than all of us. When I first heard of Anna Hazare, the reaction was pretty resigned, but as he grew popular and crowd was supporting him I tried to figure out what is he really fighting for. And then I did my share by accepting a few causes request, a few likes and comments on facebook and I got rid of the guilt thinking that I did my part. I guess thats the attitude that Anna is talking about "I don't care if your beard is on fire, I want my bidi".

All these thoughts made me open the "My Life" document which contains all my long term goals for the next 20 years (I wrote it 2 years back). It had goals related to my personal development, financial development, my goals as social worker and my goals as a wife, mother and daughter. And when I started looking at my thought process and my actions today, it was very clear to me that the only areas where I am trying to make progress are the ones concerning financial development and my goals as a wife and daughter. Personal development and social work is something that is almost invisible in my life. That probably is the reason of such a resigned attitude towards whatever Anna is fighting for and turning into a slacktivist (person who supports the causes virtually i.e online and in turn adds no value to the cause).

I don't know how many people (like me) were touched and forced to look inside themselves because of this movement that Anna Hazare has brought to this country. But even if there is a considerable number of people who could feel the way I did today, then I think Anna is a true hero and a leader.

Now there is only one question in my mind, "What's next ??" and yes thats an obvious question, "Good that I realized what I had to, how is it going to change anything that I do today?? Am I going to eradicate the dreams of owning a beautiful house and a BMW ? Or am I going to just going to do some small social work like I used to do earlier ?" Answering these questions really makes me move out of my comfort zone and I have lost that habit of working out of comforts since a long time. I do not have answers but I can feel the source of commitment and inspiration residing inside of me come to life again !!

Thanks Anna !!

Discover "The Professional" inside you !!

"The Professional" is more than just a book, its a guide and mentor. I am a huge fan of self-help books, but this one just blew me off, since i could entirely relate to it. Out of all those that i have read till now, this is the only one which completely focuses on the professional qualities of a person and has been written by an Indian author - Subroto Bagchi. The fact that the author is a successful Indian figure makes it very simple for an Indian Professional to relate with the author and his experiences of dealing with the Indian environment.

What does it really mean to be a Professional ?? What are the true qualities of a Professional ?? How do i deal with different circumstances at my work place ?? What do i really need to be successful ?? These are the kind of questions which this book answers.

The word Professional has many different interpretations, but generally most of us picture doctors, lawyers, engineers, management people and others with sophisticated professional qualifications. To counter this belief, the author describes the true professionalism of an illiterate man whose only job is to bury the unclaimed bodies from a hospital. It is a true story and has been described in a way that it would deeply move, inspire and empathize the readers. Author wants the readers to understand that its not qualifications or the sophistication of work that makes one a Real Professional, rather it is the two main qualities which are "The ability to work unsupervised" and the other is "The ability to certify the completion of one's work".

Starting with Integrity as the foundation of Professionalism, the author describes the following qualities in different parts of the book - Self Awareness qualities, Professional qualities, Managing professional load, Managing complexity, The expectations of the New flat world and lastly the Professional's professionalism.

Every quality has a very simple and interesting 2 pager explanation, which would make the reader stop and reflect on himself/herself and feel the complete grasp of what he/she just read. The book is full of interesting incidents from the lives of the author and his acquaintances, which makes the reader totally relate to the author's perspective with the help of real life problems, complexities and experiences. He explains how to conduct one's career with intelligence and integrity. Its even better if the reader keeps rating himself/herself on the qualities described by the author and takes notes on the action items that he/she should take to inculcate those qualities in oneself. Thats probably the best way to take the most out of it.

I would recommend this book to any person who aspires to be a Professional, irrespective of the person's profession or age. Its a truly inspirational guidance that one can draw from this 200 page book.

The author of this book - Subroto Bagchi, is the Vice President and Gardener of MindTree. He is best known for co-founding MindTree in 1999 where he started as the Chief Operating Officer. MindTree is among India's most admired companies across industries. In 2008, Bagchi took on the role of Gardener at MindTree. "The Professional" is the third book written by the author, the first two being "The High Performance Entrepreneur" and "Go kiss the world". His blogs are available at www.mindtree.com/subrotobagchi.

Inspiration

The word Inspiration is the second most powerful word for me. The first one being Love. All I want to be is "An Inspiration", not because it would feel good but because I admire the people who have inspired me and now its my turn to pay it forward.

So what does this word really mean ?? The word comes from Latin language and was coined in 14th century and what it really meant then was "to blow into or upon; to breath into". In 1560, the word was also meant "creating power", which is almost the meaning thats used today.

According to Dictionary.com, the word Inspire is "to influence or to suggest". To me, this word means much more. If i look at somebody or somebody's work or somebody's thoughts and my reaction is "WOW !! I wanna do that too..", thats when the person or person's work or person's thoughts totally inspire me. Its like somebody just blew in or breathe into me, a lot of creativity and thoughts.

What i have learnt is that every person is a source of Inspiration for each one of us, no matter whether that person is the gem or a discarded piece of society. Every person can breathe into you a lot of creativity, but only if you are ready to receive it. Most of the times, our doors are closed so tightly that the breathe of others can't even reach us, but only when we open the doors and allow people around us to breathe into us some life, hope and joy - that is called "Being Inspired".

Few people manage to be an Inspiration strong enough that their breathe has the power to penetrate through the doors and walls of majority of the population of planet and they are called Legends. Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Sachin Tendulkar, A R Rehman. These are just few names of thousands of such legends.

They are an Inspiration for me because they have the power to breathe life into thousands of leaders and legends of tomorrow. WOW !! I wanna do that too...

Evil me vs. Angel me

Evil me: I have told you a trillion times that i absolutely hate gyming.. Why do u keep pushing me to be good and healthy.. I don't wanna be.. Just get off my head..

Angel me: Thats not fair.. U promised that you wouldn't argue about the gym if i let you have the kitkat in the afternoon.. U had it and it was close to 100 calories which means 20 mins on treadmill @ 8 kmph.. And just think you don't wanna die of heart attacks..

Evil me: Whats the point of living longer if you spend half the life in the gym and other half in counting calories.. Okie, lets make a deal if you will let me have a pack of kurkure after the gym, samosas tomorrow evening and a romantic movie tonite, i might consider gym..

Angel me: Are you crazy or wat ?? No kurkure and samosas.. I can consider movie.. But instead of samosas, i can allow you veg steamed momos.. only steamed, no fried..

Evil me: Kurkure, movie and momos ??

Angel me: Only movie and momos.. By the way, you didn't move a muscle on the weekend.. What are arguing about.. All you think of is movies, food and sleep.. Be productive..

Evil me: Blah blah blah.. Damn you.. Life is so very hopeless with you.. Anyways, i will have to agree with you for the gym.. Or else u'll kill me tonite with your favourite weapon - GUILT.. At least i can have a movie, momos and my peace of mind.. Too bad, i have to share this body with you..

Angel me: Its bad for me.. Had you not been there i would have been a millioniare by now.. You are so very lazy.. Anyways, thanks for agreeing for the gym.. I will definately keep my promise.. Now, lets go !!!

Where are the answers ??

I am a 25 yr-old common girl living in a city called Bangalore, working for an MNC. I know that i am a very tiny part of this whole big universe, at least physically, and my dreams, aims and aspirations are much bigger than what i am right now.

I have never believed in the God that every religion describes. I have never believed that we human beings are small and there is God above who created us, if we pray to Him, He will fulfill all our wishes if we deserve them. I have only believed in My God, the God thats within me, the God that resides inside my skull and contains all the thoughts right from the time i was born.

I love to believe and have faith in the "Law of Attraction". I love to believe in the Landmark Technology. I love to believe in Noetic Science and Neuro-linguistic Programming. Because all these make me believe that the ultimate power is within me. We are The Creators. And thats true, if our ancestors living in 10th century were to visit us now and see our lifestyles so totally dependent on technology (which we created), they are positively going to believe that we are the Gods. Science and magic has a very thin demarcating line.

In spite of all these beliefs that i believe in, i have a very serious concern. I understand that all of these beliefs needs a lot of practice. None of them can work according to u, unless you practice enough to make them an integral part of your thought process. I have tried to do that, a multiple times. I have even been successful in making my life work to quite an extent solely through these believes and efforts. I have inspired a lot of people around me with the dedication on these beliefs and efforts. But i very strongly feel now that there is something missing. Some large piece of a jigsaw puzzle is missing.

One of my dear friends was trying to help me figure out what that missing piece is and according to him, our brain can attract and form patterns around things only if it believes to have a significant value - which is by default known only to our unconscious. To consciously know the value of something that we really desire, there are layers and layers of abstraction which have to be peeled to understand "why we desire that we desire".

A small incident. It almost always happens that whenever i wear a white lower, it rains and that results in my white lower getting stained with all mud which is really difficult and irritating to clean later. Yesterday it was slightly sunny weather in the morning so i wore my white churidar. As soon as i entered the office, i got a sms from this friend of mine jokingly saying that "you are going to make it rain in bangalore today" and i replied him back saying that "I am sure that its going to be a dry weather today". I said that because i wanted to test if my thoughts have enough power to stop the clouds from precipitating. And then the entire day i kept visualizing how good a dry weather would be today evening when i go home, there wont be any muddy water to spoil my white lower and no wasting time on saturday trying to remove the stains. So all i did was to visualize that i was walking down home in a dry weather, on dry roads and reached home wearing absolutely shining white lower. But at around 6:30 in the evening when i was about to pack up, i saw a few guys coming back to seat saying that we'll have to wait for some time since it was raining heavily outside. All i could think at that point was "What the hell did i miss ??"

Yes. I did miss something because i know my mind has the power to stop the clouds from raining. But what is it ?? I did feel hurt but when it comes to bigger things in life it hurts even more. Me and my fiancee are trying to move to a same city before our marriage in May and market isn't good for us to switch jobs. We have taken the responsibilities, we are being unreasonable in our efforts, we have enrolled our families into what our dreams are, we keep visualizing about our lives together and we feel great about it, we have concrete and discreet plans of doing things together, and yet there are no results. Probably its a bad time, but if it is a bad time, Where is the power of my God (residing inside my skull) to make things happen ?? Or is it that our brains don't see enough value out of what we want ?? Is it a lack of effort, lack of inspiration, lack of planning, lack of belief, lack of talent ?? What is it ?? All that i have in my mind is Where are the answers ?? Where are the real, practical answers ??

Just another morning !!!

Today is just another morning. The same work, same boss, same office, same colleagues, same cafeteria and gym. Nothing is different except for me. Yes, I am different, I feel different.

It rarely happens that I am coming to office at 8:15 am in a crowded BMTC Volvo bus with people pushing against each other for an inch more space to stand, and a short tempered conductor shouting at the top of his voice carrying the worst frowning expression anybody can and I am standing at one small corner near the door holding onto the railing with my iPod in my ears and my mind in another world away from everything. In spite of all the people around me, I just couldn’t help but sing that beautiful song and imagine myself singing and dancing in an open field with nothing in the world to worry about.

Forgetting my stressed relationships, forgetting the deadlines at work, the worry about the English classes, fear of not performing, even forgetting the short tempered conductor asking me for money and just everything, I was in another world where I was dancing at my best with a few special people to appreciate the beauty of my self expression. I wanted to shout, sing and dance to let the entire world know I am in a different world – a happy world, and that I have all the power to conquer this world too.

Wake Up Sid

I never knew I could relate to a movie so much. The two main characters in that movie meant to me a lot. They both were just the opposite, just perfect in their own worlds but ended up falling for each other. I don’t know if this was just any other love story, but somewhere it did seem like the story of our life – Kapil and Prabhjot.

I don’t know if I am writing about the protagonist of this movie or protagonist of my life – Kapil. He is just so typically Sid or rather Sid was so typically Kapil. Whatever it was, but there was a striking similarity between them. It seems like the writer just had Kapil in his mind while designing this character and he decided to change a few things to match the script.

Kapil just knows how to make people smile even the people who are so typical frowns. He just has to buy stuff in a shopping mall and a lots of it (he just doesn’t care about the money, even without a rich dad). He hates people lecturing him especially after his failures. His way of handling failures is to blame it on the entire world at least initially, but then later he does understand what he did and quietly comes and apologizes (without a sorry !!!) and showers his love in the most charming way. He loves to dance and hang out with his friends all the time. If given a choice, he would do it every evening without fail except those evenings when he is busy on his “Prince of Persia”.

Cleanliness is just not his thing, infact I wonder if that word even exists in his dictionary. But you know what, he would cook, clean and do whatever it takes if he really wants to win your heart. He has an immense respect for females, he wont think that a girl wants to sleep with him if she is ready to go around with him at the middle of night on their first meeting. In fact, such a thing won’t even occur to him. He just absolutely loves his life, knows so clearly that the only aim in life is to be happy. Since he hates people lecturing him, he doesn’t even believe in “learning from other’s experience”, he only believes in learning from his own experience and he just does that perfectly. That entitles him to a lot of "jhatkas" before learning something more about life. He would seem a little immature and irresponsible to you, but that’s just his attitude towards life, a “life is all about fun” attitude. But his first impression is generally wrong, because when he takes on responsibilities he puts in every damn effort to make it perfect and his immaturity just adds to his extremely charming personality.

Whether it is dancing on the worli-bandra sea link at 3 in the morning or if its getting drunk in some corner of the city in the middle of the night, drunk enough to drop his iPhone in water or if it’s the craziness of watching the 20-20 world cup match in PVR and being so very upset at India losing the ICC Champions Trophy or if it’s the energy to collect the most stiff and undanceable people in the college and make them perform a group dance on the stage. Anything as crazy as this has to be Kapil.. And how can I forget, he is such a perfectionist that he doesn’t even feel guilty at making his girlfriend change her clothes thrice if she has to go out with him. He wants the best in the world and he loves it when people are envious of him, whether its his phone, bike, job or his girlfriend – it has to be the best. Of course, his ways of making somebody feel so very special are so uncommon and special. Its yet another of his charms that has made me so badly fall in love with him.

Okie, so now about the second character of the movie – Aisha. She is such a simple girl who just steps in Mumbai with a thousand big dreams, innocence and a lot of determination to make her every single dream come true. She loves maturity in people, she aspires to be a mature, woman of substance – a no nonsense types, yet full of live and happiness. She doesn’t care much about the world till she keeps moving on towards her dreams and she loves writing. She doesn’t really like people who are not open to others likes/dislikes. And there she meets this guy Sid who seems to be a total opposite of what she had expected her love to be. Yet she falls for this charming young man who she still considers “a baccha”. I wonder if the writer had my thoughts while designing this character.

I am sure if someday I’ll write a script of a movie, it has to be very similar to this one. It had just my thoughts and feelings. There was so much about these characters that I loved. It is almost unbelievable.