Just before Adios

“ Pyaar koi bhool nahi, Pyaar koi awaz nahi,  Ek khamoshi hai, sunti hai to kaha karti hai,

sirf ehsaas hai yeh, rooh se mehsus kro, pyar ko pyar hi rehnd do koi naam na do”.

                                                                                                                                            -Aarushi

That day I could not able to concentrate on my job properly. I was waiting for her call throughout day but I did not get any. I was thinking whether she felt so bad about yesterday’s fight?? But what did do as such? I was just trying to tell her what is correct and what is wrong! Is it necessary that I have to support her even when she is wrong? So let her call me and why should I do it? Normally I do used to get call every time we had fight. But why it is not coming today? Did she forget me? Or is she still angry on me? She did not even bother to reply to my good morning message. Is she still worried about yesterday’s talk? Why is she not even giving me miss call? It’s almost half day passed but could not hear anything so far. Okie… It’s too much now I will also not wait for her call. I don’t need her too. If she doesn’t give me importance why should I give??  Why I should need her if she doesn’t need me?

Still I was unable to concentrate on my work. It was almost evening but my wait did not get over and I could not come out of it either.  I was getting depressed and could not hold it further. I took my cell gave her call.

Hello Arushi?? , she said, “Mandy, I am in college function from morning I can’t talk now”.

I felt relaxed. All my idiotic thoughts got settled now.  I felt so relaxed; I could able to start my work again. I started to think, what took so long to give call? Is it my ego? Or my angriness? Or what else? If I would have called in morning I would have not spent complete day waiting and mourning.

I flew back to some such events that had happened in past. This was not the first time we had fight in past one year and so. Last time we had fight was because I wanted her to give some of her days’ time to me. I just wanted to spend some time with her. I started to force her for the same.  She had her own problems, her own studies and had to take care of her family. Though I knew her situation and her status but I could not control my emotions and I started to get frustrated and we started to fight on some or other way. All that I needed was her time and wanted to feel that I am also important to her along with her other responsibilities and studies. But I had observed that every time we fight, it use to go to such extent that we wanted to break it out and wanted to stop this relation. Angriness always controlled us and we fought every few days. After sometime we started to feel that may be we are pushing this relation and she does not understand me. We bid good bye many times after these fights. But one good thing that always impressed me was, “Arushi real nature”.

After every fight I used to stop talking and used to be in heights of angriness. But after a while my mobile used to ring, I used to get her call every minutes. She used to keep texting me “Mandy, please pick call, I am very sorry for everything” but I never used to pick. I always used to take time until I get back to my senses and after a while I used to pick call. But meanwhile I would have got many calls and many messages of her.  We used to talk calmly and we used to sort out everything again and our relation used to get back with full life. Once that moment passes our love used to grow very much and it used to multiple after every recovery. She was the one who used to initiate communication. We always made sure fill that communication gap. That day I learnt that if at all someone has to learn on how to keep relations and how to fill relation with life, and then they just have to be like “ARUSHI”.

“My best relation is the one who always said sorry first even when mistake was mine”. Arushi always did that.

One fine day in one of our conversation, she had told me, Mandy, everyone is having their own life and they live it in their own way. Until you put yourself in their shoes we will never come to know what that person is actually living.

One golden line that she ever said. “I don’t judge someone else love”.

What a meaningful line, If we understand it we will understand each other’s love. We feel what other person feels. We start to support each other when we do it. You stand for them and you will stand tall.

 

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I am sure every one of us might have experienced same situation some or other day in your life. But most of us ended up with breaking the relation.  Most of us will make relation very easily and will try to impress when it is new but we fail to retain it with life in it. Most of our fights end with bad note.

Never leave a true relation for few fights or some flaws, nobody is perfect, nobody is always correct, its matter of time, let that time pass by, keep aside your anger, keep aside your heartedness, apologise and adopt, in the end “love and Affection” is greater than “perfection”.

When you could wait for someone for few hours it indicates your need and for you they are optional. But when you can able to wait for few days you have hope and trust that they may come back, but if you learn to wait for person when you are aware that when person cannot be with you for rest of time and you still want to be with that person and you still wait for them then it’s out of “Love” and is indeed love. All that need is Love. You understand it; you feel it and reciprocate it. It grows indefinitely. It stays with you and it makes you something which you even would have not imagined.

If u gets very closer to someone then small change in them will hurt you. Don’t preach every time, if she/he has done mistake. Sit beside her/him and make him/her understand. Tell her that you do it out of concern not because of her mistake. But make sure that you support her/him even when she/he is wrong because you have to support her/him and not her/his mistake. Your support makes her/him to rectify the mistake.

There is nothing called perfect, almost perfect guy/girl is not the one who has the most money to give you security or it’s not that handsome guy you happen to meet in some part of your life, s/he is the one who makes you smile and will take care of you and will always give you that security the way s/he is and can give you the most love more than that you deserve.

Someone said we should not be cheating in relation instead it’s better to take a break or just leave it than to cheat just because you are not happy with that relation. Have trust in relation and in your partner. When you are away or sometime many hands/situations/people tries to break your relation. Make sure you communicate, keep trust and support each other in spite of minor concerns or issues. Your love should go hand in hand with your studies/job/sports/work/business. Make sure you don’t ignore your partner else it will create loneliness in his/her life in spite of your existence.

 

“Let your love change your world, never allow world to change your love”.

 

Attitude matters !!

I was elder girl to poor parents, my dad used to work in the farms that are owned by someone else. I started liking Jhum fields as I used to visit those along with my parents. I started to learn the work in the fields; I had to support my parents too. I was admitted to school in Moirang and it became my routine. I used to walk to schools along with my other friends but I also had lot to learn apart from academics. I started to help my parents during my free time; I learnt how to cut the wood. Cutting wood was one of my job during those days, eventually I learnt making charcoal and started helping my parents in that too. Fishing was something that I had to do in order to help my parents as they used to spend most of their time working in other’s Jhum fields. I had to take care of my two younger sisters and my lone brother.  My schoolings developed a great interest in me for athletics and I always had a dream to do well in athletics for my family and for my school.

I was moved to Imphal for my higher studies, I was in 9^th when I came to Imphal , life was not as I expected, things were tough here and gradually I moved to 10^th class which was a major milestone in anyone’s studies, but I failed in it. I could not clear my 10^th std exams, I was left with no interest to re appear my exams. I had to discontinue my studies to make something in tracks and fields. My mid-teens had more passion towards athletics than studies, my interest in athletics was firm until I discovered about Manipur Boxer who won gold medal in Asian games in Bangkok. He was Dingko Singh. Only similarity between him and me was we both were very poor.  People were collecting funds to fecilitate our national hero. I realised that if I also can win I can support my family too. Later I figured out that woman boxing just got introduced in Manipur too.

I searched the academy, and went to meet head of sports authority of india , Shri Ibomcha singh. He asked my interest, asked my age, I was just in my mid-teens, he rejected my offer and asked me to go back to home. I was waiting all the day at his gate. At the end of the day’s work, as he was coming out of academy. He finds me still waiting for him from morning. He was impressed with my attitude, dedication, and eagerness to do something.

I started to attend training sessions, I realised that this is game of taking the pain for success. Taking the hard blows and it needs do or die attitude in the rings. I had to get trained from male coach, every time I get a punch on my face, every time I fell down on floor, my coach used to say get up mary , common, do it again. My starting days of boxing were very very hard and I was struggling. My friends asked me to quit, sometime I felt like to quit. I had no support from anyone. My family was not even aware of that fact that I am practicing boxing.

My struggles gave me good result, I won state level competition. My secret got disclosed when my dad found my picture in local newspaper. My dad came to Manipur to find out what’s going on at my end. When he realised that I am playing Boxing, he got furious, he was not calm. He got hurt, returned home with my gold medal in hand. I could able to convince my mom and my siblings. My cousins were proud of my achievement. My dad was worried that with this game I will spoil my face; by choosing this game I have put an end to my future. He gets more tensed and worried thinking no one will marry me. My cousins consoled him and tried to convince him.

Few days later I started to get incentives and I started supporting my family, eventually my father figured my passion towards boxing though he did not had slightest idea about where it is going to take me further. He gave me nod to continue with it. inspite of getting incentives they continued to work in Juhu fields, they had a family to support. My two sisters and a brother.

My journey continued, it was time for Asian woman’s boxing championship. There was selection going on in Bangkok, Thailand.  On my way to selection in train my passport and other documents got stolen. I was worried, dumb struck. I called up my parents and they insisted me to come back. But I continued my journey; my only hope was my uncle who used to stay there. My stress of loss documents and passport made me not to perform well, only solution was more practice. We finally had success in that. My uncle had promised me that if I get selected he will fix everything. He did it for me that day. I could not get selected in that. I had decided to work hard and practice more.

My first win was second place in women’s amateur boxing championship at USA. It gave me slight recognition. But I had my whole journey in front of me. During my boxing championship at Delhi, I had defeated chandrika of srilanka in quarters and Jong Ok of North Korea in semi-finals. I was down with cough and fever, but I could not able to take any medicine from past two days because of doping test. I entered the field with high fever and I was struggling hard to stand by. I finally had to satisfy myself with second place.

I met my husband in delhi for first time he was leader of our community at delhi. We got to know each other well, soon we got married. I am blessed with two children. My husband and my in-laws were great support to me.  I was offered a constable job in sports quote in Manipur, I had to reject it. after my few win I was recognised and offered with sub inspector job. I had to accept it in order to make my living. I was sponsored by NGOs during my start-ups and eventually after becoming world champion infinity optimal solution showed modest sponsorship.

Being a police officer in Manipur, I had to do my job, find time and opponents to practice, and then hunt for funds to build up international experience. To make my living I had to depend on my state award most of time which always don’t reach me most of time.  People keeps talking about me, they say it’s not for girls and when I got married they now saying it’s tough to win after marriage and when I had baby they started saying she can’t win after having babies. I had to make them stop talking about me.

Meanwhile my father in-law was murdered brutally. My husband was depressed and I had lost my biggest support. In spite of that I had to make a comeback. I had to support my family, my parents, my sisters, and my cousins. I had to enter the ring again. I started my practice just after few months after giving birth to my baby. I had utter weakness in me, I was unable to bear the pain, I thought of to quit playing, but still I continued. I had a great pain in my knees and sort of pain had developed in my back after delivering my twins.  In order to train myself I had to stop breast feeding my babies just after 12 months. It was very tough for me, there was not proper sourcing of essentials as there used to be blockage on roads in Imphal which normally use to last for many weeks, I had to cook food on wood fire. In spite of hurdles, just after 15 months of giving birth to my babies I claimed my fourth world championship.

When I was away for my tournaments my husband used to look after my infants.  He also manages academy. He takes care of my two kids when I am away and he makes sure that my kids never miss me.  We started our boxing academy which is free of cost for Manipuri girls and boys, here we built small room made out of bamboos and asbestos, five poor girls stays in that. Government has sanctioned land for this purpose but it yet to reach us. As of now 23 out of 30 students won medal at the last state championship. My mentor, my motivator and my man behind my success is my husband.

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MC Mary kom is five time world champion, Indian ICON who has won medal in Olympics 2012. She has won more than what others even dream of yet we are still long behind recognising this great lady. In one of her interview she said, “sometime I feel I would have chosen cricket or tennis wherein I would have got much more recognition”

Mary Kom is very emotional lady because of the sufferings that she has undergone throughout her life. Yes the more is the pain and more emotional becomes anyone. She is in search of support from our un-conscious Indians. Olympics is the place where you represent your country and it’s unique among any achievements.

She says about life with deeper pain :

Childbirth and child-rearing that is life. Lifting yourself out of poverty, fulfilling the duties of a wife, a daughter, an eldest sister, that is life. Boxing is so much; but still it is play.

I salute this great lady for her life struggles and success that she achieved in spite of anomalies. Be proud of this great lady.

For those who are not aware of her achivements, here is a quick glance ( at international level)

1. 2001     Women’s World Amateur Boxing Championships
2. 2002     Women’s World Amateur Boxing Championships
3. 2002     Witch Cup
4. 2003     Asian Women’s Championships
5. 2004     Women’s World Cup
6. 2005     Asian Women’s Championships
7. 2005     Women’s World Amateur Boxing Championships
8. 2006     Women’s World Amateur Boxing Championships
9. 2006     Venus Women’s Box Cup
10. 2008     Women’s World Amateur Boxing Championships
11. 2008     Asian Women’s Championships
12. 2009     Asian Indoor Games
13. 2010     Women’s World Amateur Boxing Championships
14. 2010     Asian Women’s Championships
15. 2010     Asian Games    Guangzhou
16. 2011     Asian Women’s Cup
17. 2012     Asian Women’s Championships
18. 2012     Summer Olympics

 

Stay Tuned !!

Other day my friend asked me, what you mean by saying self-realization is not worth!! ? , I gave her good lecturer on that line as if I never realize. Today I am realizing that I wasted my two days without doing anything!!… Friday night I had great plans for the weekend; I will get up very early, will cook breakfast and will go and meet my friends with whom I have scheduled some plans. But in the end I remained in same place from where I got up in morning. Open Facebook, see status of others, like the status, like the photos, and play games till game itself gets bored of me. Eat and sleep. .. What the heck?? Same routine with minor changes in timings repeated for Sunday too!!!! , now I am feeling a sort of guiltiness that I wasted time with doing nothing.

“The only time you fail is when you fall down and stay down.” 

Few days back we had Silver Jubilee Association of our school, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Almatti Dam site, we had a great opportunity to meet all our friends, juniors, seniors and to get to know each other very well, in one of our meet with my junior friend who was very close to me during my schooling  I asked so what are you up to these days??  I literally felt bad once I hear his reply in very casual manner. Nothing bro, did my graduation, now staying in home town, my dad is having some shops, he normally look after these shops, I visit there sometime, its family business. Why should I work when I have so much of property to look after? You know bro, recently my dad gifted me iPhone 4  I will be online most of time in Facebook. Please be in touch J

It literally made me sad, reason is very simple, he was such brilliant student now I am finding him doing nothing and wasting his time!! (I am sorry bro, Incase if you are reading my blog, In spite of my awareness of personal matter, but you still remain to be younger bro of JNV,   it’s just time to realise that you have to re-think and act accordingly for your great future, if you are not interested in job try for higher education if not learn your family business and take it to excellency)

If we move out of track of working, it will become very tough to get back into it. I had an elder friend, who is not with me as of now. He was a very successful person, born talented, vivid artist. He used to work as a lecturer in college, he happens to go back to his hometown for someday and he loses interest in that job, thought of to start some business so that he can stay near by his home town, gets married and also does the business well to some extent and also loses interest in that business too J he again started to feel that he wants to go back to his teaching job or office job which looks much better with respect to financial stability. Meanwhile he sits in home for few days and it becomes his habit, so he totally stops doing anything. Started wasting time in whatever the way possible without any productive work. Later he could not come out of that laziness… still now he is in search of that job that he was looking for from past 6 years…

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From Feb 2012, I am witnessing a very aged lady of age around 75 yrs. to 80 yrs. She wears glasses and Vibhooti on her forehead. She sits near Hyderabad house, you can see her if you are walking from St John’s hospital towards Forum. She sits with a bag of ground nuts and red peas, so that she can earn something by selling those from morning to evening. At early days I was not much curious about her, everyday her bag looks to be same. With same quantity and same items.  Most of the day she never had customer but I never missed her to see in morning at that place around 10 AM-11 AM.  One fine day I had to go to office to attend a meeting , so I was at that place around 7:30, to my surprise I saw that lady already sitting in that place with her bags. I was literally stunned by the way she was working for her lively hood.

Next day I thought of to buy some nuts from her, I started my conversation with her, that day she told me that “you are my first customer in past three days”; I hope my day will be good today. Sometime back, I thought of to speak to her and take a picture of her, but she did not tell even a single line about her life and she did not allow me to take her picture too. I had lot to learn from her, working hard with positive hopes, not losing hopes in spite of bad time and punctuality and dedication that she had at her age. Hats off to that great lady, for me she is somewhat great person as I witnessed her in these past 7/8 months.

I am sure most of us go for work, we work hard sometime in office too, but the way we take things is quite different, if something is not working, we tend to get frustrated a lot, we get angry very fast for something that is not according to us, we feel we are overburdened, we feel we are not recognised for whatever we does. But life is all about keeping ourselves happy and with a positive hope that everything will goes well and one day even I will be recognised for my work , just like that lady.

Some of people in and around us will be very casual, very easy with time, not interested or not serious about working, we may be thinking that this is not right job for me and I should get into something else, but once you get something else you may again feel that my old job was much better than this!! , we end up with wasting time by doing nothing other than social networking/TV/games. I agree that we work, but are you really working on one day at once?? Did you really work today that you are satisfied with??

I leave this blog with a question for most of us, Are we working even on weekends? To put my question in other way, are we using our time at its best??  Rethink!!! I mean it.

“Often, it’s not about becoming a new person, but becoming the person you were meant to be”

Playback Time

Few months back, An IAS aspirant friend of mine “Kiran” was invited to participate in youth parliament in her state. Few other youngsters were also invited for the same to know there opinion on the today’s politics, its limitations and what can be made to improve the governance? She had asked me on what to speak over there so that the CM can be impressed.  Corruption? Un-employment?  Poverty?  Or is it about present ruling party’s drawbacks?

I had told her to speak about “appreciation!!”, it’s not that government is not improving anything ( despite of many other drawbacks or limitations ), the main cause is we are not identifying the positiveness in any ruling party. It’s about appreciating the good work done by the government. Till date there are no such incidents that opposition party that ever appreciated the work of present ruling party?? Instead they are spending there most of positive energy in finding the loopholes, flaws, mistakes, limitations or negativities of the government and it’s been highlighted to very great extent. So the power of appreciation is not at all used by any of the political leaders.  The day we learn to appreciate the goodness in others, it multiples the goodness. It becomes the inspiration for others and for the person itself to carry out some more good deeds in future.

 

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well” 
― François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire

It’s very easy to criticise than to do it by ourselves. Very same thing was done by me too sometime in June. My Facebook status said this 

Some days back, my status said: An hour of emotions : सत्य मेवा जयते 
++ Its other face of that : one show conveys each message, one of message from show is
इलाज के लिए २५० Rs नहीं होने से बच्चा मर जाता है !!
और 
ये बताने के लिए आमिर खान सर ५ लाख हर मिनट की फीस लेते है !! 
Food for thought!!

I had got this as forwarded message from my friend, which immediately made me to flash the same message as my facebook status without analysing the truthness behind the same. I was in very same notion about the same. I stopped watching Satya Mev Jayate which I was following it very closely till that time.

I thought of to analyse the same. Understand the efforts and the impact made by the same. Let me take you through behind the scenes of Amir Khan Sir’s “Satya Mev Jayate”.

Satya Mev Jayate is AMIR KHAN PRODUCTION’s reality talk show produced by Amir Khan and his better half Kiran Rao.  Show telecasted in the early week of May 2012 at the prime time of every Sunday. There were around 13 shows done so far with last show telecasted on last Sunday of July 2012. 

After the first show media claimed that Amir Khan is being paid a bulk amount of 3 Cores for hosting the show. Amir is on the great track of making huge profit from this show. His 10 slots take 10 Lakhs which is much higher than IPL (for 10 slots IPL took 5 lakhs).

This was not the first reality show that telecasted, before this also there were many reality shows hosted by very famous actors, to name few, Amitab bacchan’s Koun Banega crorepati had deal of 150Crores !! . each show of Dus Ka dum had atleast 2 Crores , Akshay’s  Master Shef, Khataron ka Khiladi had bagged atleast 2-2.5 Crores for every show.  Hritik Roshan charged around 2 Crore per episode for being judge for Just Dance. So no one raised voice against these??  So why all of sudden there was a great noise about his payment?

Amir Khans ‘show was not about any reality game show? Or it was not about any dance? Neither it was about cooking? Nor it was about making money. In short most of reality shows that were telecasted so far has impacted only few persons not the society or community. This was the show which had raised voice against common social evils or very general social issues.

What was the motto behind this show ?  it was an honest attempt to understand the issue, get closer to people and understand the severity of it.  then highlight the issue so that they can get clear road map on how to move further.

Amir Khan had a clear vision on what he was doing? He is backed up with a team of researchers who have completely dedicated there time for investing on the issues and reaching out to the people and making documentaries of their life stories. They claimed to be travelled across India trying to reach most of people who are hit with social evils that they had documented. Just to say. They have even reached out to the very small villages of nearby Dharwad, Karnataka. This all is not that easy, you should have a very great financial support and lot of investment is needed to make this happen. So who sponsored that? It’s none other than Amir Khan. It was not for any entertainment. He is also having his own personal life survived by his wife Kiran and a young born Kid in his home. Apart from this show he had already signed up some other films too. This was surely not for public stunt. He is already very famous and he tried to approach the people with some of his films by conveying some messages. Just like, he highlighted primary education in “Tare Zameen Par” and gave insight of education system in “3 idiots”.

This show was totally dedicated to touch people lives about existing social evils. In one of his interviews in the TV, he says, If we understand the issue completely, then the action we take on this will completely differs. If he tries to convey the issue clearly then it will definitely make impact on the notion of the people. People may start to look at it in different way.  So how long the effect of show can be on the people? It depends on the issue and in which way they correlate it with themselves. If people tend to remember movies then they definitely remember the messages conveyed by these shows.

Amir Khan at least comes up with the show that brings social issues in the lime light. It has also impacted many people and many other governments. To glance back on the each show and impact that it made on people, I summarise it here.

His first episode was on issue called female foeticide in Indian Society. It has lot emotions and all real stories about few individuals.  Very next day after the show, Rajastan government took action to 

stop illegal practices of female foeticides. Fast track court to deal with issues related with issue was also setup.

Second show highlighted about child sexual abuse and as a result the legislation to protect children below 18 years from sexual abuse became a reality with passing the bill in parliament. Third show was highlighted on Dowry System, fourth one with health care system and its miss use. His other episodes tried to touch the social evils like, opposition of love marriages in Indian society, physical disabilities and lack of infrastructure to fight for the same. Adverse effects of pesticide, Domestic violence, alcoholism, Casteism and untouchability, old age, water crisis and rainwater harvesting.

Don’t you think he tried to touch almost all common social evils with his show??  With his show he also helped those NGOS which are already fighting against these social evils. These NGOs are not totally supported by satya meva jayate. Many cores of amount was collected by these NGOs as the effect of this show. Summary of donation is as follows.

This show has touched many people across the country. It has tried to highlight the bare truth of the society and when people recognise the truth then they start to think.

Everyone already knew about these issues, even then no steps being taken on the same? Why is that so? The main reason for the same is because, we tend to wait until our family or nearby people faces the issue, only then we try to react. By nature we try to be ignorant. We ignore until some of us be victim of the same. We ignore because we are not dared enough to raise voice against it? We ignore it because we are habituated to sufferings, we ignore it because we don’t have support for the same. We are being ignorant these many days. But Satya Meva Jayate is that platform which tries to enlighten people on all these issues.

Criticising is very easy. But if we put yourself in someone else socks and think on what they are doing then you may feel proud about the cause. Appreciate the honest effort. Identify the noble deed and Support it.

Amir Khan is not making any money out of it. in fact he is losing money in the same. But it’s not about money every time. 

 

Disclaimer : Some of statistics and pics are taken from internet. 

Famine ?????????

We, few of my office friends were returning from a small trip on a cloudy evening. We thought of to have dinner before we reach out Banglore. We were in search of good hotel in the outskirts of the city. Suddenly I could able to see a man by roadside who is waving and whistling, he was inviting us to the hotel for which he was working.

We parked the car, and went inside. We ordered some starters and I thought of to call up my parents by the time we get our food, so I came out of the hotel to the place where we parked our car. I was searching for the toilet, thought of to ask the guy who was busy in whistling and inviting other fellow passers. As I asked him where is the toilet?? He showed the way to it with the very beautiful ascent. It did not take long time for to guess that he belongs to same part of Karnataka to which I belongs to.

It made me curious, so I went near to him and asked where you from are?  He replied politely, I am from a village near Bijapur. I saw him very closely, he was in his 30’s with dark beard and his hairs have become reddish because of the consistent dust of the road. He was wearing slippers with half-moon cut at the end, had a whistle and was wearing uniform of hotel. I started to ask him casually, so what’s your name bro? He told me Ramesh sir, he asked me back where you are from sir. My reply bought smile on his face. He became bit friendly. I started to ask him chain of questions …,

He came to Banglore in search of better livelihood. But as he is illiterate he did not get much better options, hit with Bangalore’s cost of living. He starved many days and nights at his early days of stay. Searched for job here n there but all in vain. He thought to go back to his home town, but he was not having money for tickets also. Finally he got this job. His job is to stand by roadside during lunch /dinner time and gather the attention of travellers by whistling and making gesture of welcome. He told me that he has stand from 11:00 am to 12:00 in night. In return he will be honoured with two meals.  One for him and other for his wife. His wife waits for him from morning to till night. He also gets enumeration of Rs 300/- for month. He uses that amount for his groceries of the month. I felt very bad by listening to his story. He gets something which is left out servings of customers’ orders.

I joined back my friends at the table. By that time they had already placed main course order. I started enjoying the dinners. We were done with dinner and we paid the bill too. We gave tips to waiter too, but what made me very sad was the amount of food left unused on the table. Almost all food was left unused and we paid for everything for more than what it deserves.

Before leaving that place I thought of to say bye to Ramesh. I went near him and felt like to give him some money. I went forward and gave him 100, he told me, I never get chance to see Rs 100 in my hand unless it is month end. But with due respect he returned that and said. I am already adjusted with my salary and I don’t need it. We left the place very quickly.

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Other day I was down with fever, could not able to get up from bed for a complete day. I was very hungry throughout the day. I had all raw materials in home to prepare but was so weak that I was even unable to move out of bed. So throughout the day I was hungry and was rolling on bed with hungriness. Sometime in evening I finally woke up from bed, went into kitchen, searched for any eatables. Finally I told my roomy to bring something to eat, after so many forces he finally bought at 10:30. That day I literally understood what value of food is.

How many of us have 3 meals per day every day?? To be frank, I don’t, I either skip breakfast or I will skip lunch, so on average mostly I have 1 or 2 day in week with 3 meals per day. My friend keeps telling me that we work so hard and earn. So that we can have food properly. So don’t compromise on cost when it comes to food. On particular day, we 3 people went to hotel and had food. On the end bill was around 2800, and for someone it will be his/her month’s salary!! ..

Let me close this with some questions… in spite of your good earnings, are you having food thrice a day? On a particular day, what’s the cost of food per meal??  Is it worth of it? Are you wasting food still?? (It may be the amount of money invested in that meal, or worth of that meal? Or what if you get that meal in feasible amount? )

 

Are you still wasting food????

Parasitism

Someone once asked me, what keeps you happy! It’s not that easy to answer when I myself don’t know the exact answer. Happiness is state of mind and situation. It may differ with respect to people and situations.  Many people may influence your state of mind, many says do what your heart says. Just a small question strucked in my mind. Does heart says anything??  Or is it mind that speaks?

We as human have a greater tendency to follow others.  We live in a society; hence forth our life will be influenced by many others too. Fair enough, so we start to live as others suggest. Or to live the life the way others expect too, to most of extent. Our most of decisions will be dependent on our friend’s opinions or someone else reviews.  So our state of happiness will be ultimately influenced by others.

There are two kinds of people we always come across. Some people influence us by their life and some gets influenced. There will be only 20% of people who will influence others by their life style. We call these 20 % people as SUCCESSFUL. Rest 80% will strive to reach among those 20% and they try to follow them. We call these 80% of people as SURVIVALs.  So what makes this 80% people to stay among one among 80% only?  Only one thing, they always try to find 100 reasons for not doing certain thing!!!! Fact is they forget that there are other 110 reasons to do the same thing if they wish to do it.

Let me narrate you a small story !!

“In a forest there lived a tiger family. It has couple of tiger cubs and its own other cats.  One cub got separated from its family and got mixed up with deers family. Deers started to treat that cub as one amongs its family. Tiger cub started to play with deers. It grown up by the way deers grew up.  It started to follow deers life style.

One fine day these all deers and the grown up tiger were playing happily. Suddenly it saw the rest of deers started to run as tigers have attacked them. So our grown up tiger also started to run faster and faster. It ran so fast thinking it should not be caught.  In the night all deer’s and this tiger were very happy that by the grace of god they got survived today.  Deer’s leader was giving them advice on how to escape when tigers attack them. This tiger felt so good after hearing to their leader’s speech and thought I will follow the same.

This happened for long. It spent most of its life running for its life and trying to survive among the deers. One fine a day a Eagle which was watching this from long time. Flew down and thought to say something to this tiger. It was waiting for situation to approach the tiger. One sunny morning as tiger went near the pond to drink some water alone, eagle followed it and said. Hey there!! ,  Do you know what you doing ?? Tiger said , what ?? , You are wasting your life by the way you are living.  Tiger got fussed and said , what ! are you out of your mind ? I am living my life to good extent. I graze in the field and will be the first one to survive when Tigers attack.  Eagle replied Calmly , Hold on,  why do you graze in the field ? why you run for your life when other tigers attack ? you should go for hunt, you are pride of this forest , “YOU ARE a  TIGER”.  This tiger did not belive his words and started to giggle and make fun of eagle, you think I am a Tiger ! , you should see the real tiger , I am a deer buddy.

Eagle thought let me try again,  and asked you think you are deer !!, well, so tell me friend, Did you ever saw any tiger in your life ?? this tiger replied  with pride, Yeah So many times, Every time I run for my life Tigers will be attacking us.  Okie , fair enough, look into the pond and tell me do you see the tiger ??  as tiger peeped into the pond to see, it saw the tiger and started to run again. Eagle followed him and told, wait , wait, its nothing other than you. You are a tiger”.

There is a lot to learn from this story.  We all know that we are tigers, but we need someone to show us the way or to make us realise that we are tigers.  Most part of our life we fail to make decisions. We try to play very safe, we fail to take calculative risks, we start to ask for reviews for each and every single of decisions.  We are so dependent on others, may be our friends, relatives and others to make us decision for us. We mostly follow them. We tend to follow the mob and we wish to be one amond the mob. Masses never be a successful persons. Successful person is always a only one and definitely he will take his own decision. He takes a decision and makes it right.

We should start to think on why I should do this? If we start to think how to do it? We will become survivors and we always lead our life as survivors. If we think on why I should do this? Then we will be the one who will influence others.  Make sure you live your life and not on someone else’s opinion.  Find out the opportunity and work on that, cross check with yourself that does that opportunity helps you to make the difference?? can I afford that much of risk ? If I lose this opportunity do I have any other alternative options which give me same visibility? Between this rat race we all wants to be successful. For that we all have to be ourselves. Be yourself and success follows you.

PS : I am not a successful person , it’s just a thought that striked and thought of to share. Images chosen are just to fit to situation.

Fatalism

Other weekend we four were on the heat of some sensitive discussion. Me, Manju, Praveen and Shrini. I was very much interested in listening the discussion that was heating up between those three with Praveen on against of the topic. Well here it goes, we started with religion but we were very much interested in caste system in each religion.

We studied in a school called Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV).

Just to give info about JNV, It’s a govt of India plan, autonomous organisation under minister of HRD. There are more than 590 Jnvs functioning all over India except Tamil Nadu.  JNVs functioning with a strong motto of quality education to talented rural students.  It provides free facility to make sure there students to learn about strong component of culture, inculcation of values, awareness of the environment, adventure activities and physical education. Whoa, let me stop about JNV, else I will end up with a blog on JNV.

We all were in JNV for 7 long years.  We all shared everything irrespective of to which caste we belonged. Moreover we hardly knew about caste!! What all we knew about caste was whatever we studied in our history and how caste system and why it came into existence when you look back your ancestral history.  I did not at all know about my caste, and not even any of my friend’s caste. We all had grown up as if we all belong to one caste and one religion.  We had lot of discrimination but never on caste, was it most of time on your skill set. Students used to be discriminated depending on whether he studies or not!! That’s all.

I was done with my 12^th and was giving my PMT/AIEEE exams, where in I came to know that there are three categories, OBC, SC/ST, General. So for the first time that was what all I came to know about grouping of castes and what all benefits it has from examination perspective may be with respect to reservation.  Well when I was done with CET and I went to get my caste certificate so that I can make use of whatever benefit I get from reservation. So there I came to know about my sub-caste!! , I came to know that there are many sub-castes in different castes.

I forgot about caste once I got into my engineering. It hardly mattered to me at that time, but even if you forget it, it keeps on reminding that there are some castes which can get benefit from govt, in terms of scholarships, exemptions from exam fees blah blah..

During my post-graduation I felt some itching about casteism, it was probably for 1^st time I was into open world. I realised casteism do play a role over here, I started find lot of discriminations, irritating behaviours, politics and many more things. I am not interested in highlighting any particular caste or any sub caste. But I eventually realised that this is no more Navodaya.  You will find lot of interesting cases to study when you come out with a opinion in a mind that all are equal.

We were searching for a house to rent during my first few days of stay in Bangalore, happen to meet couple of house owners, questions were quite interesting! , so which caste do you belongs to ? I told “xyz” , so under which caste it comes ? I dono !! , are you vegetarian? Or non-veg?  After some interrogation and yes or no, final answer used to be like “Sorry we can’t rent this house to you”.

Eventually I start to find groups based on castes, special preference to those people and all, so it’s more likely that if there are 20 ppl in class there will be 4 groups at least and out of 4 groups there will be two groups which were based on castes!! , I won’t mind about making groups if you like it, but don’t use it to highlight that you all belongs to some special caste!!  This is where a politics came into picture slowly.

Let me take a case study, there are some candidates which are in pipe for some interview process or for some other event.  While shortlisting those candidates you slowly look into those people whom you think they may belongs to your caste, and you make sure that he gets into it irrespective of whether he is really capable of it or not ?? so in turn you are supressing others !!, it happens with you also when you go out and others does the same !!

Two friends who are together from childhood, one fine day you realise that your friend is not the same as he looks to you, you offer him something but he rejects it politely or indirectly. You need something from your friend and you know that he has that element but still he bluffs you that he is not having it with him/her.  You eventually find your friend meant, or you may find that he is sharing those things with someone who has come just some days back into your friends circle. Sometimes people behave so arrogantly by giving importance to their caste rather than humanity.

Many of us face this caste problem during marriage time.  Our society is still not in that stage that it will accept inter-caste marriages!! (Forget about metros, do keep in mind that there is a very big world other than the metro in which you live). In most of love stories caste is the main reason for breakup. Many times parents won’t agree for love stories because of existing caste system in society. So there will lot of breakups and leading to some other problems. Take it other way, now rarely parents agree for inter-caste marriages, so let’s imagine that parents agreed for the inter-caste marriage. So once they get marry, you will find your society treating them very differently. Forget about society, your own relatives start to treat them differently, many times for any family functions you will not be invited and you will find yourself out of home/your society leading to frustration and eventually killing the real meaning of life.

Incase if you are a girl, normally girls are always treated differently from boys. Most of parents won’t allow there girl Childs to choose professional courses.  Very few parents allow their daughters to study whatever their daughter wishes too.  Now you study professional courses like engineering/ medicine. During marriage time you find that whatever alliances you are getting is either not as qualified as you are or not professional.  So in the end you will end up with forceful compromises. You never know how your life will be after your marriage.

You are done with your degree, you want to go for higher studies, and it’s your long term dream that you want to excel in your field by gaining required knowledge.  You will find that your parents objecting you to pursue your higher studies. They may be asking you to stop your education. Where in your brother is allowed to pursue whatever he wishes to. So why is that so?? , that’s because of caste system again, your parents are very much scared that if you study PG/masters they have to find you alliance who is again masterate !!, ideally very few cases or very few people get the candidate who is equally graduated. So it will eventually delay the marriage programme leading to your parents’ tension. Because they are bound to find a guy who is in your caste/sub-caste.

I can pile you up with the effects of caste system on the society or on the life of ours. I am sure many of us face different situation or different problems because of caste system. Many of us might have got irritated with prevailing caste system. Guys it’s time to act!! Let’s make a move to change the existing caste system, it’s up to you to change or else live with it.  You can change it if you wish too. Again it depends on how to do it!!

I have a plan; it’s totally my take on changing the caste system. I have told you side effects of caste system and inter caste marriages. Well I want to change that doesn’t mean that I would like to go for inter-caste marriage. That’s because there will be lot of drastic effects of that move. Well, here I go, I wishes to marry a girl whom my parents’ wishes too. I am sure it will be within my caste. But by me it will end. I won’t enforce my future generation to follow that. So I make sure that this caste system of mine ends up with me.

So what all I said is about caste system not about any religion. I respect religions. Every religion is having its own significant meaning and values.  “If you protect your religion your religion will protect you”.  Don’t mix up religions with castes. It’s time to think and act. I wish everyone is treated equally.