Embrace Now, it's the best 'Present' you will ever get

Anywhere you go, you see your peers, your juniors, your seniors, practically everyone making plans for the future. Now I am not saying that's bad. Yes, one has to plan & think about the future, but don't you feel that because of our obsession with future, we miss so much of now..

We plan what we are going to do tomorrow, a month from now, for somethings even a year from now, but have you ever tried doing what you like just now, right at that moment?
Now I know I sound like a romanticised fool, but seriously, now is good & important to, because soon it will become the past, so make sure you make it a past to cherish & not regret.

Take a few moments off from your schedule, don't plan anything to do with them, just do whatever you feel like at that moment; Read a book, watch a movie, take a snooze, eat your favourite dish, explore the neighbourhood. Anything you feel like doing. Just try to live those moments completely. Remember, anything & everything is ok.

It's not possible to do it all the time, but one must take those little breaks, where you have not planned what to do. 'The Unknown' is also a good thing, try to explore & enjoy it.

After all, we all know this saying, 'Now is not forever'.

Split & Simplify

"Never put your feet in two different boats". We have all heard this line so many times in our life, but tell me do we follow it? Really really think about it.

Most likely your answer will be no.

These days we all wanna be multitaskers, juggling jobs, home, events, food, friends & God knows what not and I don't blame you. It's so easy to mess up this simple principle in today's time where everyone dreams of being an over achiever.

So when we have all heard about this a million times, why am I reiterating the same point??

Well, all I am doing here is sharing my story of how I got caught up in one of these cycles and how I am learning to let go and simplify my life tiny steps at each time.

Like many of my peers I tried to juggle between trying to loose weight, learning a new language and improving my career. I have been trying to let things not fall apart for about three months now & yes, I have had no success in even one of my goals.

So now I have decided that I will just focus on one thing; Now which should be this one thing? The one you know you need the most and will benefit you the most at that moment.

So I focused first on loosing weight and getting in shape, so these days my only Goal in a day is to wake up early in the morning, do my workout and then cook a good healthy meal. So far I must say its going good and I intend to do this for more one month to ensure that I really really get into this habit.

Next I will focus on learning a new language as it will open new doors of culture & tradition for me.

As far as improving things on job is concerned, I try to set aside 30-40 mins of my day to just browse and brush up through old concepts. Well that keeps things pretty easy on my plate and at the end of the day I feel satisfied and happy with myself as opposed to being disappointed and grumpy.

So all I am trying to say here is, Keep it simple everyone and take up only one goal any time. Try to tune out the voices of others who tell you not to do so, just focus on one thing & don't divert your attention to multiple assignments.

Remember it's always better to be 'Master of One' then being a 'Jack of All Trades'.

Gender Equality & Harassment Wars

Every day you go through the news, your day to day activities, you are bound to hear about at least one case of sexual assault, molestatation , rape and what not. 

All these heinous crimes make me wonder what is it that sets such perverted men apart from normal human beings. Every human has desires & yes that includes sexual desires in females as well. So what is it that is different in females & males. I say it's the upbringing. As we grow up , women are always told that men are always after your flesh & we are made to tone down our sexuality & desire to look good. Hell we all know if a women tries to express her sexual desires, she is immediately branded as a slut. Now I am not going to elaborate on this point as it has been discussed millions of time on every possible channel. 

What I want to point out here is as women are taught to tone down our desires & keep them in control, why doesn't the society do the same with guys. People give excuse that when men meet no women their lust over comes their conscience & it results in sexual assault . Hello! Have you ever heard of a woman raping a man just coz she feels to lusty??? No.

So the basic question here is to learn to control your desires & approach things in a proper way. 

We are all human and we must remember that. Treat your fellow human beings with respect and don't think of them as your materialistic desire satisfiers. 

Learn to tame your hunger, gender bias & perversion & try to make earth a better place to live, no matter who or where you are. 

A note of Thanks to John Green For Crash Course - World History

For the past few days, I had been watching John Green's Crash Course - World History.

And I must say, they were truly enlightening.

The videos make us take a journey from civilisations as old as that of the Egyptians, Indus valley to the present day.

Through the videos Mr. Green very nicely shows us how mankind & civilisations evolved over time, how we adopted agriculture, what led to colonisation & the revolutions. What were the factors that led to such wide spread adaptation of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism. What were the reasons behind Industrial revolution, capitalism, socialism & much more.

My favourite part used to be the end of the videos as they always contained a very good moral message.

My most important take away from these videos was how all that humans ever did till less then one century ago, was all about food & raw materials. Most of the european colonies were made because they needed land to grow stuff, the same factor was responsible for the inhuman slavery. How most of the wars were fought for the land & it makes me sad that in today's times in an agricultural country like India, we are not giving it enough attention & the care it needs.

Today most of us have fallen into the hands of the capitalist market & don't even care about how our actions affect the environment & society. Human kind must remember that nature has a very delicate balance. Life expectancy rate was as low as 35 not more then a century ago & millions died at the hands of food shortage. Today there is the culture of wastage & hoarding, it's high time to question our mindless acts & learn to keep a check on our rampant activities.

It's like Mr. Green said in his last videos, "We are making history right now", so you decide, what kind of history you want the future generations to read about.

Aloneness Vs Loneliness


I have seen a lot of people suffering from this “Loneliness” . There are so many who just wanna be Mr/Miss Lonely. They miss out on life’s wonders as they wait for company.

“Lonely I’m Mr. Lonely,

I have nobody,

For my own

I’m so lonely, I’m Mr. Lonely

I have nobody,

For my own

I’m so lonely”

For such people I want to ask a few simple questions. Dial back your life to when you were a kid, there were no phones, no social media, people mostly communicated with letters. So did they all feel lonely all the time?? No, they did their work, interacted with the people around them & just lived their life.

In today’s time, we have become very choosy. Social media makes our life seem worse then what it actually is. We see images of people hanging out together, posting fun activities, what we don’t realise is it’s just those moments that portray all the fun. How do you know whether or not a person is actually having fun. They might be in company of others & yet feel lonely or left out.

Loneliness is just a state of mind & only you can help yourself. Find out things you like to do & start doing them. Don’t wait for anyone to do it with you. Soon, who knows you might find other like minded people & you might get good company.

One should just live life the way they want. We do not need anyone’s company or approval to enjoy our life.

While you are whining about being so lonely, have you ever tried doing things just by yourself. Read a good book / blog / article. Goto a movie or party by yourself. Take a hobby class. You are your best company. Our elders did this only. They did their work & got on with life.

Do not miss out on the little adventures of life while you wait for company.

Remember, you are the best & only company you will ever need ☺

“Aloneness is the joy of being just yourself. It is being joyous with yourself, it is enjoying your own company. There are very few people who enjoy their own company. And it is a very strange world; nobody enjoys their own company and everybody wants others to enjoy their company! If they don’t enjoy they feel insulted — and alone they feel disgusted with themselves. In fact, if YOU cannot enjoy your own company, who else is going to enjoy it?”

Yogi vs Bhogi

In today's time, one can earn a lot of money & still never feel satisfied. There is always a new purse, a fancy watch, an expensive dinner, exquisite spa treatment & many more things to be done, in short the wish list just keeps growing.

My mother once told me, "Remember the mathematical principle 'infinity - infinity = infinity ' or as we say 'Hazzar qwaishein thi, Hazaar puri huein, Hazaar reh gayi'. In today's world where consumerism dominates every thing, I really wonder where all this will end. We all know the phrase 'There's enough for Man's need, but not enough for Man's greed'.

I myself feel that my achievements, my salary, all that I have done is inadequate. This Yama of bhog consumerism keeps following me. What happened to our age old wisdom of being a Yogi & leading a happy peaceful life being satisfied in basic things. We should all try to take steps to prevent our over indulgence of materialistic things.

Now I am not saying that we should all quit things that please us, but we should all learn self restraint or at the very least not feel bad if some one else gets to do things which was on our wish list. Can't buy that new expensive dress but your pal got it, no worries, you can save up & get it later, unable to goto your dream destination for that long dreamed vacation, let it go for now & plan when you can do it later. No matter what happens, don't feel disappointed by such small things. We should realise that life is too big & sooner or later our wish list will also get complete, but we should be patient. Greed has never done anyone any good.

I used to be jealous of my classmates working in big MNCs & fancy offices and always felt low about myself, I used feel like I had failed myself; but when I look back in retrospect, that isn't true, I like my job & the life I lead is good. I realised that I should be happy & content with where I am. Everyone's journey is different & we should love all that comes our way on this beautiful road. This journey is after all what makes us who we are.

Don't feel bad about yourself in this world where every one paints a lovely picture & pretends that they are living the dream life, it's all a mirage painted by them to showcase on various social media avenues like Facebook, Twitter etc etc. Remember it is never Real.

Remember the life of simple Yogis who led their life with basic things & made merry with whatever nature provided them with. Apply the principles of simple living where ever you can in your life & you will see that you start leading a cheerful life :)

It's like the old saying goes, be a 'Yogi & not a 'Bhogi'

Hinduism: The oldest living religion In The world

Hinduism as we all know is said to be one of the oldest living religions of the world. So I wonder, as to what makes this religion survive for so long and so well??

Well first of all hinduism is not a religion but a way of living, a culture of the land and its inhabitants. Did you know that the term 'Hinduism' was coined by the Persians after the 'Indus - Sindhu' river?? For them all the people living on the other side of the Indus - Sindhu river were Hindus and hence their religion Hinduism.

There are many similarities between Hinduism & other Pagan religions. You travel from one place to other & Hinduism changes there. Some people worship 'The Goddess Kali' where as some worship 'The Goddess Saraswati'. Some worship 'Lord Ram' & some worship 'Lord Shiva'. Its all a personal choice, you see, no compulsion, we have so many Gods and Goddesses. Each have their own personality, character, powers & weaknesses. Now isn't that like the normal world, each of us different, so naturally our divine protectors should be different to. This diversity helps us choose and believe better. There isn't one just one form of the supreme almighty but He/She exists in so many different forms, and you can pray to any of them any time you like.

This whole concept of so many Gods I feel makes the whole religion closer to our day to day lives. We get stuck on any moral situation, go look up in your 'Grantha' and you will definitely find a similar story to guide you.

You don't need to pray or perform rituals just because a priest tells you to do so. You can do it any time any way, in fact the greatest form of devotion towards your lord is doing your daily errands with total dedication and honesty.

Coming to the festivals, one can clearly see that they are harvest based, Holi, Diwali, Pongal etc, all are celebrated during the harvesting season, everyone is full of joy and happiness, can there be any better time to celebrate with our near & dear ones??

I believe the wide number of choices provided by hinduism, gives us all the option to personalise our faith in our own way, and that I believe is the secret to Hinduism's survival.  

In India you are either an engineer or a doctor or you are nothing

Let's admit it guys, as part of our great Indian culture, our parents directly or indirectly brain wash us into believing this, that you are either a doctor or an engineer or you are nothing.

Let's say we give into that pressure and go through the ordeals of preparing for IIT-JEE, AIEEE, AIPMT and all those state exams and what not, some of us lucky ones clear the exams & qualify for the top institutes.

Some get into the private institutes and some are backed up by their parents support (you know what I mean)

We all slog through our curriculum, which I must admit is the worst thing one can do. Me for example, I loved to code but after finishing my B.E (Computer Science) used to hate even the idea of coding, ya that's what our great education did to me! I still remember this one incident, I was coding a program I had written and the teacher came near me and saw it, the reaction to which was "You do the program which mam gave you, else I'll kick you out of the lab!!" That's the kind of teachers we have in the country, no wonder ppl just stop doing what they actually want. Ok that's the college part.

After my college days, I tried hard to find the job of a programmer when every one else was happy settling being a tester or being in the support team, yes that's the favourite thing you can do after finishing ur B.E in India. I got the job of a programmer but fate had a nice surprise for me. I was blessed with the best Boss & team one can hope for in the whole world, and as life progressed my career took a turn towards marketing which I liked so much better then coding. So I was always excited and energetic and oh being in a startup was exhilarating and I must add the perks of being at Microsoft Accelerator just added more sweetness to my whole experience, so yes I loved marketing and the world of startups. My family had its little doubts about me being in a startup and not pursuing a corporate infy/tcs types job as every other Tom, Dick & Harry was doing.

My company grew well and it was really good to be the part of the team and we made a $2million exit. Which all worked out very well.

So by now I had come to accept my life as an Online Marketeer and not a Programmer. To hone my skills, I chose to work at another startup. I chose E-commerce this time as I knew, all the things I lacked in my skill set, I will be able to learn and develop them here. Yes the hours are long and hard but even when I come home at the end of the day, I am not tired or brain dead, in fact I am still buzzing with lots of thoughts and ideas as to what I would do next, so in short one can say I am happy.

But my family is again pressurising me to look for a corporate job. Can't they see I am happy here. I have a good job, a good boss, a decent salary and most important of all, I AM HAPPY!

Then why are my parents again trying to push me towards this corporate job thingy???

When will this sad endless saga of "you are either an engineer or a doctor or you are nothing" end??

Are we forever doomed to sing
"Saari umar hum
Mar mar ke jee liye
Ek pal to ab humein jeene do
Jeene do"

When will our families realise that the type of life their child wants to live is his/her choice & if he/she is happy, then just let them be... 

Introduction

This is my blog where I will be posting my musings and experiences as a Young Indian Girl facing the challenges of being in this world and sharing my opinions of the things which touch my heart and mind. All the opinions are mine and are not meant to offend any one's sentiments or beliefs.