On the way to US

Trying to look myself from a frame outside the earth, I can see a person traveling all the way from India to US. He has mixed feelings – excited to see US and its colorful life and depressed about leaving family & friends back in India. It is a furious competition between his Brain and Heart. He understands that going to US might bring a positive change in his career and professional life but the heart knows that he will be happy only with his loved ones. His thoughts are oscillating between the past and the future. He is in a great dilemma and yet so calm and patient. And what is he thinking on his way up in the air while crossing oceans together – did he make the right decision? But he knows that it’s too late now to even think about it. With full trust in his decision and carrying all the confusions and questions along, he finally landed in the States. Let’s see in the next blogs about “Howz it going in US”.

You may find it difficult to digest!!!

There is a very subtle observation I have made through my experiences. It is about hiding your secrets without lying.

You must be agreeing with the thought that we all love to speak truth. But there are few instances in life when one cannot speak the truth. In these situations one finds himself in a very critical stage. Either one has to lie and break his oath or else one has to speak the truth which is anyways not possible for him. So what should one do under these states of affairs? Should one lie and come under the category of people where most of the population is, or one should hold on to his position and raise himself above the bars?

Well the observation is that when a person is interrogating you for knowing the truth, he develops a frame of mind such that his thought process gets defined and he cannot think out of that. This happens with most of the people. So when an interrogator asks you some question he is expecting an answer for it. But your answer is something which you cannot tell. So if you are aware of his expectation and you know that your true answer is not what he is expecting then you can easily say the truth. He will keep asking you the same question in order to push you to give the answer he wants from you ignoring the true answer you have given. But your job is done as you have spoken the truth and it is not your mistake if the other person does not believe you. The important thing here is the style in which you deliver the truth. It should be on a funny node so that the other person should not have slightest of the idea that the statement you have given can even be true.

For example, your friends at office ask you to come for the lunch during the break. But you cannot go because you have some personal appointment regarding a business meeting. And you cannot tell this because your friends don’t know your personal business. You also know that they have an expectation from you that you must be going out with a gorgeous girl for lunch. So in this case how should you speak the truth?

Friends : Hey!!! Let’s go for Lunch.

You : No dude! Little Busy.

Friends : Come on!!! We know that you will be going out with her. But you cannot ignore us. Come now…let’s go.

You : It’s not that. I am seriously busy.

Friends : Ok!!! Can you tell that why are you busy? After all friends should know!!!

You : (With smile) I have a personal business meeting

(wink).

Friends : ooooooov!!!! OK OK that’s fine. Carry on. Smile.

They left.

So by this way you have spoken the truth without actually giving them the impression of it.

So keep saying truth!!! ;)

Alibag Trip

It was Sunday and I got up from sleep at around 12:30 in the afternoon. This was something usual on weekends. But this weekend was not just the same. I was feeling to go out somewhere to have an adventurous trip. And this is when the idea of going to Alibag came. I asked my roommate Ashwin, and Rohit about the plan. Initially there were few ifs and buts because it was too unplanned and we were not aware about the place and transport facilities but later they both agreed. Quickly we took shower and had lunch and began our journey. It was 3:30 PM when we left the home and took a fast local to CST. We got 5’O clock ferry from Gateway of India.

The ferry ride was little boring initially but later in the middle of the sea, few birds made it interesting by playing their show. People were feeding them “Kurkure” and we were analyzing their fast reflexes.

We reached to a port at 6 PM from where the bus took us to Alibag beach. And finally we reached to our destination at 7 PM but to our surprise the beach was not very good and we did not stay there for more than 5 minutes. We again took a bus for Kashid Beach which was supposed to be the most beautiful and clean white sand beach. We reached there at 9 and it was very beautiful full moon night. The beach was really very clean and the moonlight was making it still more exquisite. Though it was night but there were enough people to make the place lively. We changed our clothes and moved into the water to enjoy the high tides. The fun was unimaginable and the few girls around playing “kabaddi” made it more interesting ;). We left the beach at 11 and walked on the empty streets to look for a dhaba. Ate food at one of the road side dhabas and took the bus back to Mumbai and reached at 3:30 in the morning. This was our short and sweet 12 hours trip.

How do you feel when…

How would you feel if you have written a blog of 3000 words and delete it mistakenly with no back up saved? Either you will just forget it and won’t write it again or else you will sit back to write it again. But in both cases you will be frustrated and irritated for pressing that delete key mistakenly. You will try to google ways to retrieve the data back but you also know that it is just not possible. One would press Control+Z and pray to get the text back and other might search in drafts if any is saved. But after some time, when you will actually realizes that you have lost the text you have written you will feel bad. You will feel like why you wasted so much of your time in writing that long blog. Instead you could have 3-4 smaller blogs on different topics so that even if you lost one blog you are left with the rest. But you all have a writer sitting inside you who forces you to write long blogs as short blogs hits his dignity. I am afraid that losing one blog can disturb one so much then what will happen if Chetan Bhagat loses his new novel? He will go mad and can hit his wife. But why? This is because she only asked him to write. Now the question is what one should do if he loses his creation? He should make use of Time Machines and go in the past with a camera and take a picture of whatever he has written so that he can reproduce it in the present. But travelling through time machines is very expensive. So in a way we are unable to find any option left once we have lost our creation. So I would suggest you one way to get rid of that trauma. I hope you all have guessed it by now but still I will mention it here in the blog. So here is the suggestion: Once you lose your blog you should write “How do you feel when you lose your blog”.

Navaratri Celebration @ Campus

It was Navaratri festival going on. I, along with few of my friends, were dancing in our campus. All of us were in great mood to enjoy, firstly, because it was Navaratri and secondly, our exams just got over. It was around 11:00 PM in the night and we all were in a plan to dance the whole night. After some time an American, who was standing at some distance from me, turned up to me. He asked me about the festival. His direct question was, "Why people are dancing and enjoying?", "why there is so much cheer?", "what is Navaratri?" I was completely blank faced---what to reply!!! Then somehow I gathered my thoughts, looked at him and said, "Oh, it is a nice thing. A social gathering. Just enjoy, sing, dance, eat and then go!!!" The American went away but I was not happy with my answer. I was feeling like I am ignorant. I don’t know about the culture of my own country. So I came back to my room at 12’O clock and straight away went to sleep. The thought of not knowing about Navaratri was continuously coming in my mind. Then I read some texts and now I will explain what actually Navaratri is.

As the name suggests, “Nava” means Nine and “Ratri” means Nights. Therefore Navratri means “Nine nights”. At Navaratri (nine nights), the Goddess is worshiped in Her various forms as Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. Though the Goddess is one, She is represented and worshipped in three different aspects. On the first three nights, Durga is worshipped. Lakshmi is worshipped on the next three nights, and then Saraswati devi on the last three nights. The tenth day of the festival is called Vijayadasami. “Vijaya” means victory, the victory over our own mind that can come only when we have worshipped these three: Durga, lakshmi and Saraswati.

Now I will explain you the reason for worshipping them. The first three nights of the festival, we worship Durga. The symbolic meaning of Durga is “durgati harini”. She is a Goddess who removes all evil tendencies. One’s these evil tendencies are removed, the human mind is in position to gain noble virtues. Durga was also the destroyer of “Mahisa asura” (deamon) and is also known as “Mahishasura Mardini”. The meaning of mahisa is “buffalo”. The buffalo is a symbol of “tamoguna”, that is, the quality of laziness, darkness, ignorance and inertia. This buffalo resides in every human body. Although we may have a lot of energy and potential inside us, but we prefer to do nothing—just like the buffalo who loves only to lie in the pools of water. Durga devi’s killing of the Mahisha deamon is, symbolically, the destruction of the “tamoguna” within us that is very difficult to destroy. Therefore by worshipping Durga, we invoke this divine power to destroy our animalistic tendencies.

The next three nights of the festival, Lakshmi is worshipped. The symbolic meaning of lakshmi, as most of the people think, is money. In our society, when we think of lakshmi, we think only of money—counting dollars!!! This is why if one goes to lakshmi temple, one can find heavy crowds there. But this is not the correct meaning. Lakshmi means spiritual values. The knowledge of wisdom is lakshmi and is worshipped to attain pureness of mind. Worshipping Lakshmi brings him “sat sampati”, that is, six forms of wealth. The “sat sampati” is calmness of mind, self-control, self-withdrawal, forbearance, faith and single-pointedness.

The remaining three nights we worship Saraswati Devi. Goddess Saraswati represents the highest knowledge of the self. One may have knowledge of many other subjects and sciences, but if we do not know our own self, then that is the greatest loss. Therefore the supreme knowledge is the knowledge of the self that is represented by Goddess Saraswati.

Thus to gain the victory over the mind, Goddess Durga is invoked first to remove impurities from the mind. Then Goddess Lakshmi is invoked to cultivate the noble values and qualities. Finally, Saraswati is invoked for gaining the highest knowledge of the self. This is the significance of the three sets of three nights, and when all these three are gained, then there will be Vijayadasami, The day of true Victory!!!