My journey to STARDOM..

This is what I had written down in my diary on 10 January 2007, when I left Chennai (not for the first time) for the future that was waiting for me in Mumbai. I was recruited by an MNC from my campus in Pune, a month before that. I was excited to start a new life. This life I had anticipated and which taught me several lessons of life is soon coming to an end. I resigned this week and next week I will be saying goodbye to this company. I am taking a break-for personal reasons and will be staying with my parents.

This is a decision I had made after putting in a lot of thought into it, but this has proved to be more difficult than i thought -Feeling vulnerable is the least I can say.

It is not just the inequation (positive outflows and zero inflows) that bothers me, but also the independence that comes with it. I realised most of us end up in jobs we never liked to do and are scared to chase our dreams just because of this inequation-mostly, howmuchever we refuse to accept the fact.

On the positive side I am looking forward to doing things I have always wanted to. I am outside the comfort zone now. My mind is currently clutter-free. No more office politics, appraisals, targets, numbers, presentations, trainings.. My life will be free from meaningless numbers that made sense to no one -neither the ones that came up with them nor the ones running after them. I will have the time to figure out what I want to do with my life, which is just not a job that can get me the moolah.

But what happens to my independence? Have I lost it or gained it? I am yet to figure that out. Shall update when I do. :D

But I believe the journey is still on.. ;)

The little slices of death.....

Ever heard of this song in Guru? Most of you would definitely not have missed it, Guru's twin daughters sing it to him while he is lying down in the hospital-paralysed.

I love the lyrics..

jaage hain deer tak hamen kuch deer sone do

thodi se raat aur haisubah to hone do

aadhe adhure khwaab jopure na ho sake

ek baar phir se neend meinwoh khwaab bone do

What more can you expect of a dreamer? :D For as long as I can remember, I have never woken up from sleep and carried on with my day. No, I wasn't the kind that planned the day while in bed. I generally get dreams, and ,most often I remember them. I either think about them or I try completing some of the dreams I felt were incomplete. I don't how common this is, but I continue this even now. Sometimes I just dream, whether or not I thought about it in my sleep.

This whole sleeping process amazes me. I have understood how its works recently. No I am not talking about REM and alpha waves and the various stages of sleep. :D

Its nature's way of telling you to rest, to let go, to take a break, asking you to stop from pushing yourself beyond your limits. Good food and a deep sleep are considered to be the prescription for a healthy life and beauty.Its a natural painkiller, a stress reliever and helps cure m,any a disease.

I have also read somewhere, don't remember the exact words though-"Sleep now, you shall figure it out when you wake up". How true!! Most problems can be solved if you give it time- what's better than giving your system a break by going off to sleep. Its like charging your mobile every night. You wake up all charged up ready to face the world. Sleep is like a lover-takes away your problems from you, nourishes you, never leaves you, gives you the much required shoulder to lean on...

Why am I talking about sleep now? Because I have realised what it is not to get 7 hours of peaceful sleep every night!!! :D YES, I AM AN INSOMNIAC!!!! I have learnt many a thing during those nights while I toss and turn trying to fall asleep. :D I sometimes have had to take a day off because I couldn't sleep the previous night. And once I could get a few winks only after I calling in sick at office at 9 in the morning. :D (Well-what would I say, "I did not sleep?". My manager did not understand me when I said that to him once. :D)

They say you never know what you have until its gone. I knew what THAT felt like during my pangs of Insomnia. I never took it for granted again and has become one of my favourite friends. I spend "quality" time with it as much as possible, which meant going to bed at a decent time. :D. I realised the importance of keeping your body in harmony with nature -wake when the sun rises and sleep when its dark. There are these harmones that get you do that, but a fact most of us blissfully ignore, arguing that all that we need is 7 hours no matter which part of the day. Well it does, I experienced it firsthand while I worked in the graveyard shift a few years ago in a BPO. Going back to being in harmony with nature, this one fact made me realise it has to applied to other things too, eating for example. I have tried avoiding processed foods since then.

Ok, this is getting to be a little too preachy. All of us have interesting incidents related to sleep. I have plenty - I used to talk in my sleep almost everyday, practising speeches and assignments while I was at school. I have once even campaigned for a candidate for school leader while I was asleep. Sometimes, I have done sleep walking too and have become a detective once in one of those sleep walking trips looking for something called "Meecha Box". I looked into every cupboard, every room and every place in the house trying to solve the "mystery" of meecha box. ha! My family looked on with amusement while I set out on my adventure. :D. Blame it on all those those Nancy Drews and Famous fives I used to consume when I was a kid. :D

While all this almost vanished as i grew up, Insomnia caught on.. :D That's when it occurs to me how we take this one great medicine for granted and while I toss and turn in my bed, these words keep ringing in my ears..

"Sleep- How I loathe those little slices of death... "

P.S.: I have always sought the help of my other favourite -coffee, to get through my day when sleep evaded me, but these two favourites of mine never seemed to get along. Let's save talking about this intelligent drink for another day. ;)

No longer a 25-year old

Only technically... That was the whole idea behind this blog - so I can be referred to as "a-25-year-old" forever.. yey...

I can say I am a little wiser now - having gained it on my birthday. It is something everyone knows, but hardly put to use at the right time. I realised what it was to waste time in getting upset and angry over trifling issues. :D

This birthday of mine was sweet- to have entered a whole new year with someone who means a lot.Funnily, this birthday, along with the growing old part, the growing up part also seems to have happened-though not at the same rate. ;) I am glad anyways..

You drive me Crraaazzzzyyyyy...

They are aptly named drivers. I don't really know if they are even allowed to drive their "steed" (yes, they think they ride horses) but they sure consider it their birthright to drive me crazy. I somehow have happened to meet all the wrong kind of auto drivers here. I commute to work by auto everyday; and the amount of mental pressure I am subjected to, only a Bangalorean can understand. The six months that I have been living here, I have met the craziest of auto drivers, with crazy demands. If any of you happen to visit Bangalore and choose to use public transport, better be warned and derive lessons from my experiences.

For starters, the auto drivers here have the habit of asking for the complete address of your destination. According to them, since you chose to take an auto, you are rich. I sometimes don't understand why autos fall under the category "public transport". Further, if you chose to go to those business parks, (like I do) they assume you own it. Once they have arrived at these "conclusions", they decide the methodology to charge you -1)A fixed exorbitant fare 2) an "extra" on the meter reading.

There are others who do not ask for extra -but consider the change theirs. For example, if the meter reads Rs27 and you pay Rs30-he ll shoot ugly glares at you if you wait for the change. The more polished ones will say with a sheepish smile "Madam, no change". Once, i met a greedy guy who tried doing both. He wanted Rs10 extra on the meter-which i agreed to, then at my destination declared he had no change!!

Some of these autowallas have also reminded me of the expanding universe theory. There have been times when the distance to my destination is 5 kms and the next day goes to 7 or more, depending upon the morality of the auto driver. One such driver got carried away so badly that his meter reads 60 after 49. :D
So much for how they charge you.

Let us now get to the way you describe your destination. I stay at Koramangala and the nearest landmark to my residence is "Maharaja restaurant". I was outside a mall and was looking for an auto. He said he would charge Rs30 (he chose charge me a fixed fare). I agreed since that's what it generally comes to (have never agreed to a fixed fare since then). Once he reaches the restaurant, he asks me to get off like he was running a bus service. He doesn't even tune down the loud music that was playing all the while, while talking to me. He refused to take me home and asked for extra money if he had to. I paid him half the fare and said he should have gone by the meter reading. He screams at me that I have no right to talk about the meter (ha!), that its his business and that we "outsiders" do things as we please.

People who know Bangalore would know about the crazy road networks and "one-way"s. Also, you can't find a U-turn before driving for kilometers. Since my office is located at least 1.5 kms from the entrance of the business park AND on the other side of the road, I need to take a U-turn and it adds another 3 kms.(The distance from my home to the business park is only 3 kms :D) So this is what happens when I take an auto every morning.

** Conditions apply here. Their answers and their probabilities are :

Initially I used to stop with Q 2. Q3 was added due to this experience which again stresses on the "you bl*$#y outsiders" point. When I was new,I ignored Q3 and the driver stopped outside the gate and asked me to get down. He swore at me for asking why and seeing a cop standing nearby, reluctantly drove inside the business park. He continued swearing. I could only catch a few words like "you outsiders.." " our place" etc., since I ignored him and was listening to music.

These are my own experiences. There have been times when I have stayed at home thinking of the negotiations and arguments I might have to get into.I have met a few good ones too. I wish there were more like them. :D

I have also heard of worse experiences, where its not only a question of money, but a threat to one's safety as well. Common targets are girls who travel alone.

All I can do is pray that one day, we all wake up to a world of honest, pleasant and more humane autowallahs..

"Into that heaven of freedom my father, let my country awake......."

You are not alone

No.. this not a tribute to Michael Jackson, because he left this world while I was'nt blogging. :D

I just realised I had started writing a blog, and haven't done much with it.It's been six months since I have added something here. When I look back, I realise my life has changed so much the last six months-I dont live in the same city anymore, don't go to teh same office (same compay though), have shifted 4 apartments (:O imagine the amount of packing I had to do). When u think about it, my routine has also changed. We all call it a "habit", but it changes all the time, atleast with me it has.

And here, I am learning a new language, I have made new friends, met the old ones.With so much happening, I shouldn't be complaining. But over the last 3-4 days I ve been talking to people who say they've hit a plateau and want a change (even I feel my life s boring.. but this isn't abt me).

I got thinking about what suddenly happens to all of us- that our once colorful life suddenly becomes all grey. And we all try to improve it consciously,sometimes worrying about it, thinking everybody else is having a gala time and trying to catch up. I arrived at one conclusion after these conversations- WE ARE ALL BORED!! Call it mid-life crises or quarter life crisis or anything else depending on what stage of life you are in. I guess the truth is as children we all had so much to look forward to and we looked forward to the smallest of things. And as we grew up, we lost it somewhere.

Anyways, don't intend to spread any gyan. But u r not alone... in feeling "alone". ;) and YES.. I M BACK and wish to stay....

To be or not to be....

We cannot choose where we are born, who can be our parents, what we look like...But we sure can decide to live our life the way we want to. We are completely responsible for it.

Life offers us choices. I agree that life is not fair, but its unfair with everybody, one way or the other. If all was fair, we would all just be a set of robots made in batches living monotonous lives.

We can choose to live a happy and contended life. We can choose to live the way we like. We can dream of being anything and be it. Also, we can choose to whine and make our lives miserable.All it takes is the right choice.

I can choose to have a good and satisfactory job (vs) whining about my work everday.

I can choose to earn more (vs) whining about not having enough to spend.

I can choose to be healthy (vs) whine about paying hospital bills.

I can choose to have good friends (vs) whine about being lonely.

I can choose to live luxuriously (vs) whine about the neighbour's luxury holiday.

There you go-I am sorted.

How many of us make conscious decisions to improve our lives and how many of us seek solace in whining (kya yaaarrrrrr.......). Have we really questioned ourselves for the situation we are in? (well, please don't over do it and be a martyr and take all the blame on yourself and end up having low self -esteem).Most complaints people have (I guess a big majority of the population faces problems with their jobs, income and personal life) can be solved by making the right choices and not necessarily the tougher ones.

The problem with most of does not lie in identifying the right choice, we unconsciously go for the one with lesser efforts. If we do excel in something, its whining and the more optimistic ones divert that energy towards converting the whinings into EXCUSES!!!

Like health experts say, we do not like to be disturbed and love to be comfortable. So, our body gets stronger the more we "shake" it with workouts. Similarly our mind picks the easier choice by default, but we need to "shake" it a bit (consciously) to pick the "right" choice.

Choose what you want to be and surprise youself. All of us capable of much more than we think we are. All it takes is moving the a** around and work towards what we want.

Boys, stop being sissies.. Girls, stop being delicate darlings.. and make the right choice!!!

And whiners.... stop spreading the disease!!!

Oopstimism???

"Well, boys" resumed Gussie, having shot his cuffs and smirked horribly, "this is the end of the summer term and many of you no doubt are leaving the school. And I don’t blame you; because there's a froust in here you could cut with a knife. You are going out into the great world. Soon many of you will be walking along Broadway. And what I want to impress upon you is that however much you may suffer from adenoids, you must use every effort to prevent yourselves becoming pessimists and talking rot like Old Tom Travers..."

This is an extract of the speech given by a drunken Augustus Fink-Nottle, who is otherwise meek, to a class of boys of Market Snodsbury Grammar school in P.G. Wodehouse's "Right Ho, Jeeves".

Frequent reminders about optimism is a good thing, it reinforces what you believe in and reminds you of it in case you forgot about it for a moment. But what interested me here was the part about continuing to be an optimist even after leaving school. Let alone people becoming pessimists after completing their education, I am of the opinion education itself transforms them into one. Education has become more of transfer of information and less of knowledge.

This widely followed TV game show on Tamil channel where every question has upto 4-6 answers and the answers are ranked based on the responses to a previously conducted survey. One of the questions was "What makes parents proud of their children?"
The answers given by the participants were (each team has 4 people and each of them can give an answer):

• Studying well
• Winning a competition
• Getting a good job
• Achieving something

The answers were from 4 girls studying in a Law college. I was shocked at the nature of the answers since none of them was even remotely related to the character, health and good manners of the child. I was later relieved to find that respecting others was one of the right answers (whew).

The sense of competition has been fed into young minds in such a way that only winning has become everything. Later in life they tend to lose their self-esteem because they are not good enough for themselves. This turns out to be a curse especially in the corporate world. Even a good performer lacks confidence when he isn’t “the best”.

Children are born optimists; but their optimism goes for a toss with such expectations and the unhealthy competition they are subjected to. While education is supposed to prepare one for life, inculcating principles and making independent and confident human beings of them, has not even succeeded in passing “information” from the teacher to the student. More than half of this “information” one learnt at school is forgotten over time and the rest isn’t useful in any sphere of life except to may be take part in shows like "kya aap panchvi pass se tez hai?". Whether or not one has the aptitude for it, one ends up taking up jobs “to make parents proud” like the lawyers-to-be lassies said.

I am not against competition, even nature suggests competition; “survival of the fittest” is one of the laws of nature. But failure and success needs to be taken in the right stride and education needs to be more of “a putting in” than of a “drawing out”. We all talk of making the world a better place. Do we forget that the world is made of people and tomorrow’s “people” are today’s children?

Everybody has talked about it, from Albert Einstein to Abdul Kalam. Let’s hope someone listens and I hope the answers are more pleasing in some game show some time.

P.S.: I know of a social development organisation working on a different method of teaching. Can anyone enlighten me about educational institutions which use alternative teaching methods?

Google - Man's (new) best friend

I thank the kind people whose comments on my previous post helped me put my idea into words today!!!

The past 2-3 weeks after my first post ,I have been pondering over several topics like optimism, will power, affection, humanity, small miracles... only to hit a dead end. I just realised I did something weird and have done it a couple of times so far... I try finding solutions on Google. "What's new?", u may ask.. Keep reading..

I just googled "Does it really matter?" when a trifling issue was exaggerated that more important things that actually mattered were blotted out. Another time, I had googled "Do miracles happen?" when I was'nt feeling great.

Freaky, but true!!

The best part is, I HAVE found a solution on both these occasions, even if it means only to calm down. It feels like I have sent out my negative energies into the universe and I don't own them anymore. On both these occasions, I have seen plenty of pages open up with soooooooo many other people with the same problems and sometimes scientific solutions and reasoning (to my Qs).
May be finding people with problems calms me down and makes me count my blessings instead or simply poring over the same words for a while makes me feel better (read tired and enervated that "thinking" was impossible ;))

Whatever be the reason, I have found a friend on both these occassions !!! It has been a blessing and I discovered Google is a friend that never complains.. ;)

Writing down your worries have always been advised by experts. It can turn out to be a very "one-way" method of solving your problems, but Googling is both interactive and dynamic.

It has all that you would look for in a friend - attentive, emphathetic, doesn't complain, gives you solutions and DOES'NT TALK!!! So, what if it does lack the human touch, we are a breed who talk to our colleagues sitting next to us over Messengers ;)

Google your way to health and happiness ;)

Naivete attempts...

Good evening all of you..

I guess its ettiquette to introduce myself after wishing and saying anything further. I have tried to say soemthing about me by answering the W questions (actually didn't know how to start, this is how i thought for "idea-generation" for essays during school days :P)

Who: My blog name is "a 25 year old". Currently i am 25 years old. You might think I'd grow old and can't be "a-25-year-old" forever.. Well, that's the whole idea.. read on.. ;)

What: What am I doing here? Isn't it nice to have a page of your own... Some ego-massaging.. ;)

Why: I was scared of September 12, 2008; and with each passing day, I was moving closer to the day i dreaded the most. It was my 25th birthday. And somehow I felt I had to do some reality check (whew...)

The worst part of growing old is people think its synonymous with "growing up" (according to them, that is) and expect you to behave in a particular way. i wasn't ready for this yet, and didn't want to stick to those "rules" society had framed to suit its own convenience.

I didn't want to grow old anymore, to escape from the compulsory growing-up process. Since this isn't possible and I had to lock my age somewhere, I thought why not stay evergreen in my blog. I can always be a 25 year old here..

Where: Where it all started... Saw an article in a Jet Airways in-flight magazine about blogging and how to do it. Guess that's when the seed was sown.

When: This was my new year resolution.. But this idea of starting my own blog formed itself in my mind (that i consciously know of) sometime between 20-21 January. Didn't have much work at office then.. they say "An idle mind is a devil's workshop" ;)

How: Honestly.. I started doing some research on blogs during free time to have a comman man's perspective on political and business issues (not a businessman, writer, etc. who generally write those columns in newspapers) and hit upon a few nice blogs. I got addicted to a couple of them (not exactly what I was looking for, but beautiful ones), that i finished reading them in a couple of days (They are listed under my favourites). These blogs maybe watered the sown seed.. ;)

One of those was started by the blogger to overcome sorrow; I had faced some reality a couple of days before I read that post. Maybe, this was when it started "sprouting" :P and I decided, I am going to have a blog of my own!! (Thanks you traitors.. Some good actually came out of you.. )

Yippie!! The first post is done-all about myself...

Will try to keep the next blog "not-so-about-myself".

Cheers!!!