Farewell 2010

This is the penultimate day of this year, rather this decade. 30 December 2010. New decade will begin with new hopes, new aspirations, and new opportunities along with new problems, new challenges and new hardships. Before I start traversing the future, this is a good junction where I can stop. Stop and reflect on the past. Stop and prepare for the future. Next time when I will stop on similar junction, I would be emaciated, settled with life and in age bracket which is not considered young. Next time when I will stop, priorities would be changed but directions fixed, there would not be any course correction then.

So this is the day, this is the moment for me to see in which direction my sextant points. Is that the path I have to tread? If yes then how close I have inched towards the destination. If not then what are the amends for course correction. You can bring a ship to harbor without a light house and compass but you cannot lead a life without a goal. To achieve that goal, one has to do the cost-benefit analysis for each of the actions he has done in past and plans to do in future. Days like these are the perfect opportunities to do such arithmetic. You miss it and you lost it for a decade and by then life turns upside down.

White Tiger

Sometimes good things come to you when you expect them the least.In this context that good thing was a book: The White Tiger.
I was never very fond of reading fiction. I can read newspaper editorials as they deal with current and real issues but i can't stand some lengthy, verbose and imaginary novel.
Then out of nowhere i found this novel. A novel that's real, hard hitting and compels you to think. To think about this country, its people, its culture and more importantly its future.
It is a success story of a village boy from darkness ( we are privileged ones to be born in lighten India) who comes to Bangalore and starts his own enterprise. Between two ends of the story of this boy, lies the real truth of India. India is not we see or perceive. It may be the country growing with more than 8% annually and may boast of being the single largest and secular democracy of the world but it's not the country that is presented in the pamphlets distributed to the foreign delegates and state guests. This book gives you better insight of the plight and suffering of the less glorified and neglected areas of the country. It mentions each and every aspect of the life of less privileged; from abject poverty to discrimination based on caste ; from indentured labor to dowry; from booth rigging to malfunctioning education system or health care system.
If we don't want another partition of this country in future, we shall understand that all that glitters is not India. India is much more than it. We have to bring those left outs in main stream before the widened gap between the haves and have-nots leads to another fragmentation of country. India is not all about malls and multiplexes, it's is also about huts and slums near railway tracks. India is not all about millions of dollars made out of outsourcing business, it's about people struggling to get square meal a day.
Let's not forget hardships of those 3/4th of us while enjoying the luxuries we get because we are privileged.

Pursuit of happiness

Some days are different from normal ones and when they occur in life, we shall always stride to get full worth of it. Today was one of those for me. I had lots of fun, flying kites whole day. I never had experience of kite flying. So i was slightly hesitant about it. However, as behind every goof up a man makes, there is a woman, my wife insisted. I bought kites and thread.
we got up the terrace early in the morning, only to find that other were more quicker and eager than us. I saw whole sky covered with colorful kites of different shapes and sizes. We started our sail, wife giving 'Kanni' and i having hands on kite flying. We struggled for almost one hour before we could fly our first kite. Withing 2 minutes, somebody cut it down and we have to tie the next one.Fell on electricity wire and torn out. We lost 2 in 2 mins. This trend continued and we lost our kites one by one as BJP lost seats in parliamentary elections. After losing 8 we decided to go down and have lunch. Before that, we successfully flown two kites which came to our terrace after being cut by others.

Situation didn't get better after lunch, and we lost seven ours and 5 others in just two hours. Fifteen (all I had) were gone and i was left with thread, I came down.
So what was the fun i had, if i lost all the way? I would reply to that as,we shall be very clear on the point, that fun and happiness doesn't depend on losing or winning. If you have won, after cheating yourself or compromising your moral or doing what you never wanted to do, it will never lend you in peace or for that matter, bring happiness. It might seem correct at that time but you will regret it some day. If you keep your integrity intact and don't rob or cheat anybody and still you lose ( chance are less), then you shall take lesson from that. But i assure you, you will definitely have peace of mind and eternal happiness at your side. I had the same.

Uttarayan

Tomorrow is 'Uttarayan'. Huh? What Uttarayan? It's the day when sun shifts rising position towards North of east from current south of east.This is a natural phenomenon, days start getting bigger and nights smaller, till May 21 when we have longest day of year. This day is celebrated in different parts of country, with different namesof course. In Punjab, its Lohri, in other parts of North India, it's called Makar Sankranti and in Gujarat it's Uttarayan. As we Gujjus are very fond of food, we never let any festival to go by without having special cuisine associated with it.
With Uttarayan, Undiyo, kind a mixed vegetable but differs in types of vegetables put in and its sweet taste, is closely associated. That's why, vegetable prices ( now i know atta dal ka bhaav) have sharply gone up in view of Uttarayan. Jalebi and Basundi are other two delicious food items loved as much as Undiyo.
So what we all do whole day? Consume food? No. You won't find a single Gujju idle in house on the day. Everybody will be busy with his own kite on his terrace. Whole day it will go on, after all it's Kite flying day which will last for a week. Office attendance will be at minimum in week to come.
Looking forward to it, as i have also invested in kites, so called Manza and vegetables for delicious Undiyo!!

Science of Yoga

Day started as usual as I left for Yoga classes at 5 AM. Today was last day of my beginner’s class and I am now eligible for advance classes starting tomorrow.

I feel good and proud that I did it. From first day of this new year to this day (tenth), I regularly learned basics of Yoga. After attaining classes for ten days, I got better insight about it and discovered that it’s a pure science nothing spiritual or mythological. The Pranayaams, you perform have relation with our major systems in body and their functioning. There are reasons why a particular Assan will be beneficial for particular disease or person and take my word, its all science, no exaggeration. And being a scientist and an educated person, I am bound to be skeptic about it, but I could not find a point to debate on. Moreover, I can feel changes in my life and body, I feel light and relaxed in day, get sound sleep at night, can concentrate on my work, control my thought process and most importantly I have become more organized and disciplined. I find abundant time at my disposal to do all those things what I always wanted to do, particularly helping my wife in kitchen. And yes I did, somewhat succeed to achieve the goal, to reduce my pot belly, for which I joined the class in the first place.

Truth

Its been long since this blog been updated as i was busy with my technical blog.
In new year (2010), i would try my best to be regular and clear on my ideas.
Few days back, i read autobiography(My experiments with truth) of most impressive person in modern history of India, Mahatma Gandhi. I may not have learned anything from that book, but from bottom of my heart felt that if truth is on your side, sooner or later, success will follow you. It corrects the famous dialogue of movie "3 idiots". Now, for me, it's like "Seek excellence and keep unaltered truth on your side, success will follow you." If a meek lawyer, who could not defend his case and conceded defeat without uttering a word, for fear of public speaking, became the leader, having capability to take on colossal British Empire and defeat it, it was because he tread the path of truth.
'So nothing much has to be done', i resolved. Speak the truth and absolute truth only. It might hurt someone temporarily but will benefit both, him and me in long run. If you could not speak truth, it's better to stay mum than uttering a lie. This is my new year resolution apart from one which is to reduce my pot belly and learn Yoga (inspired by the book mentioned above).