Death by chance

You are crossing road. And suddenly a car comes from nowhere at a high speed and boom…crashes on you, you are dead. Was it death by chance? Or was it destiny? Or was it combination of both? Or did your god decide that your time was up? If so, then why so early – you have not even lived half of normal life expectancy of a human? Did you do so much bad in your so less time at earth that you deserved to die? What about your family – why they need to suffer every moment for rest of their lives missing you?

I was asked a question couple of months back in a corporate training – what do I fear the most in life. My reply left many surprised – I said an unnatural unexpected death. Obviously hearing this I was asked to explain a bit more in detail to which I replied that I don’t believe in god, I don’t believe in hell and heaven. I believe that once I die – I will not feel anything after that, there is no afterlife. I know no one understood there what I meant. I know many stopped listening to me after hearing out my first few words which were “I don’t believe in god”.

My theory is that there is someone powerful controlling me but it is not god. If it was god – he would not do bad to good people, if he wanted to kill someone then I am very much sure there are much more bad people on this planet that he should had called. There is someone else in this galaxy who is controlling our lives (may be something matrix like – who knows). If god created us, then atleast he should have given everyone same number of years to live. Oh god if you are there, then you should not have done that – you should have atleast kept some equality in human beings.

A complete life???

I have been running for last almost four years for a moment when I could say that my life is complete. I don’t think it has happened till now. Initially I used to feel sad about it thinking why am I not able to achieve that despite trying my best. My definition of a complete life was simple – being with family and friends, finding happiness in that and trying my best to keep them happy too.

I think the circumstances and the direction in which my life has moved in last 8-10 months, it will never happen. I feel I need to change my definition of a complete life if I want to remain happy. May be living at a distance remains the only solution where I can be happy and I can keep them happy too. May be that is the destiny or may be that is what is the meaning of life. I do not know if it is a selfish thought or a realistic thought but it is what seems to be happening. I guess its time I change my definition of a complete life to limit my and other people sadness.

It does not mean that I am going to forget the original definition of a complete life. I can never forget that and deep inside I can never stop running after that. But it is something which I have to leave it on time and hope that it happens. For everyone’s including my happiness its something I can not openly run after. It is something which now needs to start moving towards me by luck or by chance.

At first, I thought it is going to be very difficult. But then the support of everyone around me over the last few months (which have been quite tough) in making this transition has made this task easier. I guess it has actually taken me somewhere a step closer. And I now actually have started to understand that no matter how much the physical distance is between the loved ones, love never gets lost.

Living upto the expectations

I wonder what a sportsperson goes through when he is playing for the country. Millions of people have high expectations from him, expectation to perform and above all win – win it for the country.

And here I am, a normal human but still somewhere sometimes feel the burden of expectations.

It makes me feel surprised sometimes when my dad does not question me on my decision (even if it’s the biggest decision of my life which is likely to have an impact on entire family) and says “tu kar raha hai to theek hi karega”.

It makes me feel surprised sometimes when my mom says “teri khushi mein hamari khushi”.

It makes me feel surprised sometimes when my friends come and say “tu bond hai – tu kar lega sab”.

It makes me feel surprised sometimes when everyone around me has the belief in me and I am the one who is lacking the confidence. May be that is what pushes me to make an extra effort to ensure that I live up to the expectations of people close to me.

May be that is my nature – that is what I thrive on, getting motivated by other people expectations.

Thank you everyone, thanks for all the support and love. I will not let you down. J

You are the one

You are the one…

I know you will stand with me, when no one else will.

You are the one…

I know you will not ask me any question, when the world will doubt me.

You are the one…

I know you will hold my hand, when I begin to fall.

You are the one…

I know you will walk with me, even on the toughest of the path.

You are the one…

I know you will continue to trust me, even if I don’t do it myself.

You are the one…

Because I know you are one.

Is this the way

Firstly I didn’t believe what I was reading. Then I read it again. Then again. Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich had to quit because his personal opinion was against same-sex marriage. He donated $1000 in 2008 to a campaign fighting against it. So when this was publicly disclosed, he faced opposition online with some websites restricting access to people using Mozilla browser. The Mozilla management acted on this and are taking pride in removing him.

Am not questioning the same-sex marriage topic here. I do not wish to disclose my views on this topic on a public forum – I guess it can have its repercussions either ways. My intention here is to raise the topic of “right to freedom of opinion”. Eich had his opinion and he was left with only one option to save the job – that was to apologize for what he believed in. He did not, and he had to leave his job. 

Now again, am not trying to defend him on his view on same-sex marriage, am trying to question the people who raised voice against him and also the Mozilla management. What I could gather so far is that he made a public statement when this controversy erupted and said that he will not change any company policies which acknowledge same-sex marriages. So what he was saying was that though its his personal opinion that he is against it, the company as a whole will continue to acknowledge and respect same-sex marriages.

I am not sure that any gays/lesbians will be feeling proud of what has just happened. I do not see this as the way to show that the world is changing and is accepting them. It’s a forceful acceptance. Are all the employees of Mozilla accept same-sex marriage? Do they ask in interview whether the candidate is for/against same-sex marriage and do they actually not select those who say against ? Isnt this forcing an opinion in a free society. If things actually go this way, then I fear it is the beginning of killing the freedom to have your own personal opinion.

I think the entire concept of freedom is to do and support what you feel is right. So to remove someone because he has his own personal views which is against something is not correct. Its his personal views and as long as he has not done anything in the organization to enforce his views he should not be punished. I may be wrong here in this post but I am still shocked that this entire episode has happened. And I again repeat am no where trying to say if I am for/against same-sex marriage. I will like to keep this opinion personal and not to put it on web.

Rab ne banaa di Jodi

I saw this movie when I was in Infosys campus, Mysore. I know most of the people think that it’s a stupid movie but it does not matter to me. There is some kind of connect I have with this movie. The other day I downloaded this movie and watched it completely non-stop. Oh yes, you can call me a true SRK fan.

Somewhere I think its actually the SRK movies which are keeping love alive. It is his movies like DDLJ, kuch kuch hota hai, rab ne banaa di Jodi, Veer Zaara, Jab tak hai Jaan etc etc which reminds us of what love is actually. It reminds us that love is unconditional. If its love, it is true – you don’t need to prove it. It reminds us that love is simple and is a beautiful feeling. There is a sense of peace even if it hurts sometimes.

My viewpoint on love has never changed and I don’t think so it will. I was and am believer in love – may be because I grew up watching SRK movies and I accept it no matter what people think. I actually find it strange that all those people who criticize his movies for over-characterization of love actually go and watch his movies each and every time in theatres. I guess somewhere they think that its COOL to criticize romantic movies. So so so stupid of those people I say…

I think 50-60 years down the line, when am sure love will not exist on this planet anymore – it will be these movies which people will see and say that once upon a time there was a feeling like this which was called Love.

Rush

“A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.”

I must have watched “The pursuit of Happyness” a lot of times. Its definitely amongst my favorite movies. It’s a movie which holds a special place – as it has been the movie which I always watched when I felt sad. It has been the movie which helped me by motivating me during a bad phase in my life.

But off late I have not watched this movie. Its not that there have not been times in last year when I needed an external push to get back to my normal self, its just that I think the kind of motivation I now need is not given by this movie anymore. Thankfully, I don’t need any more motivation to understand that life is good, I don’t need any more motivation to understand that there is always a light at the end of tunnel (I have seen that already). And above all, I don’t feel any need to remind me that life needs to be valued.

I guess recently the movie which makes me feel motivated is “RUSH” for two reasons : 1) It is a sports movie (F1), 2) It is a very different movie in the sense that it shows both the characters in a positive way and leaves you with a thought to decide who actually you want to be like. It inspires you to follow your dreams, it instills an urge to go after it and not allow anyone/anything to come in between. It makes you understand that you need to stop worrying about others who are inconsequential in my life.

The movie is amazingly directed, the background music is great. The beginning and end of the movie is spectacular. I actually felt surprised when it was not nominated for Oscars but later on realized that a movie of rivalry between an Austrian and British has no place in Oscars.

Watch it if you haven’t seen it yet – its definitely worth it.

“You are... but trust me: watching you win those races, while I was fighting for my life, you were equally responsible for getting me back in the car.”

The strange world

One of the things about which I talked before also (http://unknownrahul.blogspot.in/2013/11/the-little-human-inside-me.html) is related to treatment of animals. Over the last few days, I have read lot of news articles related to ill-treatment of animals, the prominent ones which an sure even you would have heard of are – killing of dolphins in Japan and giraffe in Denmark. It irks me to read about all these atrocities committed on animals. Don’t know how people gather strength to do this. How can you have a festival to kill Dolphins and how can you kill a giraffe just because you want to control their number in your zoo. Totally ridiculous and I seriously wish that next life the people who did this end up on the other side.

The other thing that is disturbing is the future of our country. I have been off late watching “The News Hour” on Times Now and am seriously surprised to see comments made by Congressmen and BJP leaders on that show. I don’t want to take a political side – so let me rephrase it to all the politicians as so far I have not come across even one intelligent person. The worst thing was to see the Derek O’brien (who hosted quiz show when I was a kid and that point of time I used to think he is the smartest person on the planet) defending Mamata Banerjee for anything and everything. Common Mr Derek you have let so many people like me down who followed you as kids.

I always said that the we will get a chance to do something for the country after 15-20 years when someone amongst us will be a leader. But last few days, I read quite of my friends posts on FB related to politics, I was proved wrong. I saw people taking one side (BJP or AAP – so far haven’t come across even one post defending Congress) and ridiculing the other party. I  They are not ready to accept that either of the party have done something wrong. They are behaving like members of the party and not ready to listen to anything against it. This clearly shows that people are not thinking neutrally for the nation – they have become blind supporters.

God bless the world and India.

Out of comfort zone – III

Even though how much confident you portray yourself to be, there is a sense of nervousness inside once you try to move out of the comfort zone. The fear that what if things go wrong stays with you for some time. The anxiety if I miscalculated the move. The doubt if things will change for worse.

I guess this all adds to make the decision to move out of comfort zone so tough 

(http://unknownrahul.blogspot.in/2013/11/out-of-comfort-zone-ii.html). But the difficult part does not end here, its just the beginning. Once you implement the decision, you then start to judge your decision each and every day. You don’t give enough time before inferring if the move was right or wrong. I think that’s where everyone including me make mistake. Every decision should be given some time before one can categorize it right or wrong.

Once you come out of comfort zone, it takes time for you to adjust to the surroundings and even the surroundings to accept you. Many of times you jump to a conclusion that this is not the one for you much before things have even settled down. A lot of people make this mistake and start thinking of next move then itself. This is where life gets crazy and turns up down.

“Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to to keep a good attitude while waiting”

Shadows of the past

You can never run away from your past. Its like a shadow, which will follow you wherever you go. It does not matter how fast you run, how much you try to hide – it is going to stay with you forever.

There is only one solution – you learn to live with it. And the first step to do is to accept it. Accept it with the smile. No point in crying over what happened. What matters is what is happening now and what is going to happen in future.

I guess I have understood over the last few years that one can never run away from the past. I tried my level best – every time I felt I was done and over with it, it somehow managed to come up somehow someway. At first I used to get annoyed but with time I stopped reacting itself completely. And now the past is not a name, its more of a symbolic representation for some , a memory or comparison for others.

I don’t know why I keep coming to this topic. While writing this I had a déjà vu feeling that I wrote something similar some time back. Yeah, I was write – found a similar one (http://unknownrahul.blogspot.in/2011/09/just-let-it-go.html) .

Am not sure what happens after life. If it is that you get a chance to sit with everyone who were close to you over a cup of coffee in heaven – then its not that bad either. 

Why sooo serious

Around five years back, I remember I took pride in being a careless young guy. I was totally dependent on the people close to me, super happy and relaxed in my small little world. This is when I moved out for my first job to Infosys Mysore, and as always this is where I realized that life outside this small world is quite different (Oh yeah, as always it was this period of 2008-09 everything happened for the first time :D). Couple of close friends made me realize that I needed to become little serious in life.

Oh no, I did not become serious because of what they said to me. It was the circumstances back then that made me reflect on my life. I was a believer in god then and I took it in a way that may be god punished me because I was not a good guy. I did a self-introspection. I realized that my actions that I felt were harmless actually ended up hurting people around me. I realized that my overspending nature actually made other people feel bad and angry. I realized that my bad choice of words sometimes offended others.

So if today you feel that am too serious, I give a damn to what you think. I accept I am a serious guy. But that’s the way I am. I hope you understand that atleast because am a serious guy, you careless people are able to get away with stupidities because am around. I hope you understand that sometimes I end up saving money for you too else you would end up with debts. I hope you understand that I sometimes make you realize that using bad language can lead you to trouble.

I hope at best you understand that when you call me a serious guy and ask me to loosen up, I have the respect not to tell you that you are a careless person and its high time you get a bit serious.

The blurred faces

I have read it so many times – that life is a journey, you keep on walking. With time, I understood the essence of this statement. Life indeed is equivalent to a journey, a journey in which you walk with some milestone in your mind. On the way, you meet new people with similar or nearby destinations, so you walk with them. Sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months, sometimes even for years.

During this walk, you become friends with them. You get used to see them daily, talk with them daily, share your thoughts and feelings with them. But one fine day, one of you change their direction and you bid good bye to them. You promise to keep in touch.

However, the journey of life is not that easy. Sometimes, its due to the high demands of the new journey or sometimes its just that you make new companions in your new journey that you fail to keep in regular touch. With time, the faces you were so used to see everyday gets blurred, they start to fade.

I guess everyone goes through this phase at multiple points in their lives – when you finish school, college, shift jobs. It feels that you are losing a part of life. However, I guess its actually you are gaining a part of life. A part of life in which the people who actually matter are going to stay in touch and at the same point of time you get an opportunity to meet and add new people in that close circle.

Turning 27

One interesting thing I noted on my birthday couple of days back was that I ended up spending my last four birthdays in different cities. The 26^th one was in Chennai (http://unknownrahul.blogspot.in/2012/11/happy-birthday-to-me.html), the 25^th one was in Kolkata (http://unknownrahul.blogspot.in/2011/11/turning-25.html), and the 24^th one was at home in Delhi.

Never thought about this at the start of the year, but as my favorite quote reads “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” I ended up spending my birthday in a different city, Bangalore.  

Over the last few years or so, I always preferred to not to work or study on my birthday. During college days, I always took off. Even my last two birthdays, I took off/half day from work. Unluckily, had no such option this time and it proved to be the busiest birthday of my life so far. I eventually got couple of hours time late evening and had good dinner with a friend, few calls from friends n family who remembered its my birthday J. (P.S.  I know am going to get a call from couple of friends soon who follow my blog, and they are going to put the blame on me of not having birthday update activated on FB :D).

I guess this post is incomplete if I don’t explicitly thank couple of close and special friends for making the birthday so so so special, with their wishes and beautiful  and amazing gifts J. Lucky to have you in my life. Thanks again. J

Strangely am excited already for my next birthday to find out which city I celebrate it in. :D

Those sunny days – II

Everyone says that the first job is special, for some its special because that’s the first time they feel a sense of being independent, for some its special because it’s the first time they earn money.

For me the first job is special for entire different set of reasons. The list of the reasons is very long. But one of the reasons is that it was in first job back in 2008-09 I started writing. Oh yes, it was back then in those sunny days (http://unknownrahul.blogspot.in/2011/04/those-sunny-days.html), when first time in my life I bought a diary to start writing. And that diary remains the only time I wrote with utmost honesty and truth.

For couple of months in that period, it was my only friend. It kind of provided my with a sense of comfort. Every night I used to scribble down my thoughts in it. I never wrote anything on this diary after that period.  When I read them after couple of years – I realized that some of the thoughts in it were very beautiful, but some of them were really scary and weird. So I decided to keep it away from everyone and hence as a precaution keep it with myself not in my home in delhi. I dont think so anyone has read it except me. J

For lot of people, clicking pictures is a way to remember things.  For me its writing – this blog, that diary. It reminds me of the feelings I had at a particular time of my life. It reminds me of what I was going through then. More importantly it reminds me of what I thought about my life.

Out of comfort zone – II

All good things come to an end…… If moving on is difficult – it shows how good the time has been.

Things are almost perfect – almost like a dream. Then, eventually a time comes when you need to wake up from the dream and face reality. I am happy in my comfort zone and a big part of me want to stay in it. It want to stay in it forever.

However, I guess it is the past (http://unknownrahul.blogspot.in/2011/12/out-of-comfort-zone.html) which has made me strong enough to take up the challenge and move forward. I admit I feel scared taking decisions that change the surroundings around me. I like things to stay as they are.  I guess this is where the support of my family and friends come into play – they give me the courage to take such kind of decisions. Sometimes, I feel surprised that how much they trust me to take decisions independently including trusting me even at a point when I was not ready to trust myself back in 2008-09.

Many people including me struggle to take that important decision. A decision that is going to make the near future tough, a decision that can turn the life upside down, a decision which if it goes wrong can make your life living hell. On a positive side, if it goes right then the risk taken is more than well compensated.  

Sometimes you have to think ahead of time and take a decision. A decision which most of the people will disagree with as they don’t have the vision like you have. These are the toughest ones because they put you completely out of the comfort zone alone in a box.

 As expected 2013 is turning out to be a year to remember both for good and bad reasons...second best year in terms of learning experience so far..

The little HUMAN inside me

Sometimes I wonder if we humans who are the most intelligent species on this planet are actually at the same time the worst species too. And yes, I am like you a part of it and am doing nothing to change that. To make the matters worse, its not just that we are bad to other species like animals, we are bad to other humans too.

The good human inside me sometimes feels pity about the beggar on the road, a street dog shivering in the cold, poor people not having money for the medicines, a small hungry kid sleeping on the road etc. I think about it for max 2-3 minutes and then get back to my normal life. I don’t take a step forward and try to do anything to change that. I am not sure if I can bring a change in the society or in the lives of the needy people/animals.

I have always been asked by many quite curiously that how on earth a Punjabi like me who lived in Delhi for more than 20 years has turned vegetarian.  As an individual I feel that as a human being by being a vegetarian I am listening to the little human inside me who wants to respect the animals and feels sad knowing that we humans actually end up killing animals – again its my perception and I don’t try to preach it because its none of my business. J

I feel sad reading in newspapers about how people sacrifice animals for religious reasons. I think that is one of the strong reasons because of which am agnostic as if god exists he would have done something to stop this unless he actually likes to see people killing animals which I highly doubt. I don’t understand why something is not done to stop all this and why people feel happy after this. How can good happen to you by killing someone????

The little human do keep asking me such questions from time to time and I keep thinking about them but find it really hard to get a satisfactory answer.

The clueless times

Sometimes you don’t know what you are running after but you continue to run. May be, you   are running from the situation or trying to find time to sort it at the right moment. 

Sometimes, some things happen which create a feeling of emptiness and you try to fill it with time.

Sometime, you know you have let quite a few people down unintentionally – but you cannot apologize for that.

Sometimes you just want to see the future, you are not interested in the present and want to forget the past.

Sometimes are crazy times – Sometimes you just have to wait for time to pass. J

The hidden answers

Despite what happened (http://unknownrahul.blogspot.in/2011/08/and-everything-stopped-for-moment.html), he always had one fantasy. It was to meet her once again (http://unknownrahul.blogspot.in/2011/10/love-or-desire.html), something like Alfred expressed in The Dark Knight rises. He also fantasized about just an eye contact with her – an eye contact to express that they both are happy in their own lives, they both have buried the past and now what they have is nothing more than mutual respect for each other. He always felt that this one minute of eye contact will make him feel better, it will give him answer to all the things which remained as questions with the end of relationship. Whilst the meeting never happened, but with time he found all the answers from the most likely source.

He found the answers from himself as time passed. Time made him realize that there is more to life than her. From one view of him not being good enough for her, he found the lost self-confidence of believing that he was meant for someone better. From being afraid to communicate with strangers, he again started viewing them without any preconceived notions. Above all, he reclaimed his individuality and beliefs.

Today he is not waiting for that one moment. Yes the thought about her do cross his mind once in a while but the feeling is just of respect and a bit of anger about how things ended. He does not need any answers as he has already found the most important answer.

 “When everything has been said and done, its best to leave it that way.”

A minute of fame

I guess I was one of the late adopters of facebook. I eventually came on facebook when I heard people were actually questioning my existence as I could not be found on the social networking site (The same is happening again now as am not on WhatsApp, damn I hate technological evolution in social networking :D).

The biggest reason for the success of facebook is that it has given everyone of us a shortcut to “A minute of fame”. Well, if you are doing something that you want to “boast” about – put it on facebook. You want to show your ex how happy you are without him/her – simple put it on facebook. It is your “A minute of fame” and make everyone else notice you. I am fine with all these – but the ones where people tell how much they love their parents/friends/pets, I find that really irritating sometimes. Common, your pet is not on facebook – please go and kiss him in real rather than sending a kiss virtually on his facebook page created by you only.

I guess its fine till the time you are doing it for “A minute of fame” and not bothered more about it. It is bad if you start getting affected by it: “Oh no, only 5 likes”, “Did he notice my status – how can I find out”, “Let me think what I should put today on facebook”. People like these I call them “virtual” people – people who bother more about their online life as compared to real life.

I seriously wonder sometimes what the next evolution will be in social networking. Definitely facebook is just the beginning – there is more to come. Hopefully by then, I would have atleast migrated to WhatsApp. J

Gossip – The social conundrum

I was never a topic of gossip during my school and engineering days. One way to look at it is that I had a very clean image, but the other way to look at it is that my life was boring or I was not at all considered worthy to be a topic of gossips. :D

Things changed when I moved to Infosys. Oh yes, I was famous in Infosys – for both right and wrong reasons and was a topic of gossip for some. It did hurt me when I was being talked about in the campus for wrong reasons. I did have arguments and fights in stopping those gossips but it made the situation worse.

Things further changed when I moved to MBA. Whilst I was able to maintain quite a low profile in the first year, things did get little messy in the second year and was stupidly linked to someone or the other don’t know how and why.  I did became a topic of some gossip. But this time, I behaved little maturely. I did have a couple of arguments but then decided to just leave it and not allow it to affect me.

It surprises me that even today I do become a topic of gossip - no matter how much I keep myself as low profile. I have realized that be it school, college or office – Gossip is a big part of social interaction and it is something that will impact me from time to time. I know that I too sometimes indulge in this but I always ensure that it is harmless. I do think before saying anything. What really irritates me is that when someone says something about me to common friends without any base. And the rumor spreads like fire. So So stupid. What I do as a reaction is to just SMILE , don’t defend myself and ignore it. J