My neighbor Mrs Pawar is an old lady in her mid 70s - she resembles a typical Indian mother. I had been to their small little house once to meet Mr and Mrs Pawar as a new neighbor.I was absolutely enchanted at the warmth they greeted me with! I developed a strange bond with his Pawar couple.
My daily regime is home-work-home , 9 - 9 and hardly get any chance of interacting with them. Everyday when we come back , we see the surroundings in front of our gate is absolutely clean and think the gardener cleans the area everyday! He does a good job, ow we pay him I guess !! I was whipped back to my civic senses a few days back while i peeped out of our drawing room as I was working from home ! Mrs Pawar was sweeping the entire area with a broomstick and clearing away the weeds!! The surprised and ashamed me, went promptly and asked her "aai (mother in marathi) , why are you doing this ? " .. she replied with the same innocent smile on her face "an untidy appearance does not give a positive vibe" .. d mesmerized me immediately threw my next question "but why you ? why not ask the respective house owners do that?" .. the same calm n sweet lady said with the same smile "i do it because its visible to me and costs me nothing, others will do when they realize" !!
We come across so many sights a day which are not very soothing to our eyes - child labor, poverty, beggars around, alcoholism , druggist , duping and what not. The easiest thing we do is to keep away and best thing we do is criticize. Often we are found saying "ohh this is what I hate in our country, when I was in UK at least i never saw child labor!" or "ohh people lack civic sense here, the streets of America are so neat!".. We do spend money in luxury and good/bad stuff like shopping, party , alcohol , betting and what not! We earn in 10 digits and we save in whatever digits - all for ourselves. While we read about poverty and child labor in newspaper and get served by children at the street side tea shop, sometimes we chuckle and comment about their misfortune. The question that really shook me up is "what steps have I taken to contribute in their betterment that I deserve speaking about their misfortune ? - do i sponsor a child? do i save for a future investment in at least 10 street children ? do i spend time educating them rather than going partying and socializing?? We read motivational pieces from famous impressionists like Shiv Khera or Robin Sharma , but do we speak to our family, friends and neighbors about cultivating good habits or developing a positive mental attitude ??.. well, i think many of us would get an answer no!!
We discuss the latest movie in box office n go to a movie together, we speak about the latest trend in Wills Lifestyle and go shopping together. Can we talk about the visible gaps in our surroundings and take some corrective and preventive measure together ?? Can we realize that taking an effort costs nothing , a ocean is composed of drops , drops of our efforts can make a mass !! My senses say "yes , of course" ... What do yours say!!
Drop in your comments, friends :)
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Freedom
Its more than 60 years that India has gained Independence and what we call "Freedom". While I could discover a commonly predominant syndrome in the gentry nowadays called " i dont have time syndrome", my grey cells were kind of forced to dive deeper and do a little bit of analysis of the extent of freedom in our little common lives.
You must be thinking ,aumm..wats this syndrome all about..Well, lemme be little elaborate. India is supposed to be a culturally and spiritually rich place as emphasized in many pieces of verse including Robin Sharma's "The Monk who sold his ferrari". Everybody used to be warm, cultured , peaceful showing real instances of hospitality, we used to have time to stand and stare, stop n hear. Now we have entered a Next G era, wherein often being proposed for a cup of coffee our tongue in conjunction with vocal chord comes out with "ohh I dont have time to die even"!! which is so true. Most of us have entered a labyrinth wherein we gotta keep rolling in and out for earning our livelihood and we hardly come out of it, mostly because consciously or subconsciously we do not want to.. We have many reasons to be cited like "we are ambitious", "we need money" , "we are making our children's future secure", etc etc.. But do we really know what we mean ? Do our ambitions come with the vow of not spending time with our family and friends ? Are we not putting up lame excuses to our kids while leaving them in day care that we are earning for them ? I might sound quite rogue, but thats quite true.
Now, lets come back to our core topic of freedom and play a game of identifying instances of freedom in our own lives. You are free to select your own questions from the following:
A. Am I having the freedom of choosing my own time to work ?
B. Am I having the freedom to dream of anything I want in life?
C. Am I having the freedom of spending as much time as I want with my family and friends?
D. Am I having the freedom of exercising my sense of creativity and innovation at every stage I want ?
E. Am I having the freedom of serving my parents, my creators to the fullest extent and spend quality time with them?
Well, if I look at myself I do not !! All the answers to the above question would be "Not me, its my employer who has the liberty!" Its quite unfortunate indeed that we are rushing towards something we ourselves are oblivious of, we do not have time to introspect of what we really want in life and whats the prime objective !! There's only one life we gotta live and why not live it to the fullest.
Its high time to take a look back and recalculate, explore the best means of living our lives. A balanced life is not rocket science or not as complicated as launching a spaceship! We need to earn back our freedom and fight for it. We just need to trust ourselves - I have read somewhere that certain things cant be shown with colored pencils on graphs , but are nevertheless real - trust is one of them ! Winston Churchill in one of his famous quotes has said "Sure I am that this day, now, we are the masters of our fate. That the task which has been set us is not above our strength. That its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our cause, and an unconquerable willpower, salvation will not be denied us".
I am on my track towards salvation - try to reincarnate myself :)) Freedom is what I am praying for .. Peace and contentment what I am looking for ... Justice is what I am cultivating ! ...
You must be thinking ,aumm..wats this syndrome all about..Well, lemme be little elaborate. India is supposed to be a culturally and spiritually rich place as emphasized in many pieces of verse including Robin Sharma's "The Monk who sold his ferrari". Everybody used to be warm, cultured , peaceful showing real instances of hospitality, we used to have time to stand and stare, stop n hear. Now we have entered a Next G era, wherein often being proposed for a cup of coffee our tongue in conjunction with vocal chord comes out with "ohh I dont have time to die even"!! which is so true. Most of us have entered a labyrinth wherein we gotta keep rolling in and out for earning our livelihood and we hardly come out of it, mostly because consciously or subconsciously we do not want to.. We have many reasons to be cited like "we are ambitious", "we need money" , "we are making our children's future secure", etc etc.. But do we really know what we mean ? Do our ambitions come with the vow of not spending time with our family and friends ? Are we not putting up lame excuses to our kids while leaving them in day care that we are earning for them ? I might sound quite rogue, but thats quite true.
Now, lets come back to our core topic of freedom and play a game of identifying instances of freedom in our own lives. You are free to select your own questions from the following:
A. Am I having the freedom of choosing my own time to work ?
B. Am I having the freedom to dream of anything I want in life?
C. Am I having the freedom of spending as much time as I want with my family and friends?
D. Am I having the freedom of exercising my sense of creativity and innovation at every stage I want ?
E. Am I having the freedom of serving my parents, my creators to the fullest extent and spend quality time with them?
Well, if I look at myself I do not !! All the answers to the above question would be "Not me, its my employer who has the liberty!" Its quite unfortunate indeed that we are rushing towards something we ourselves are oblivious of, we do not have time to introspect of what we really want in life and whats the prime objective !! There's only one life we gotta live and why not live it to the fullest.
Its high time to take a look back and recalculate, explore the best means of living our lives. A balanced life is not rocket science or not as complicated as launching a spaceship! We need to earn back our freedom and fight for it. We just need to trust ourselves - I have read somewhere that certain things cant be shown with colored pencils on graphs , but are nevertheless real - trust is one of them ! Winston Churchill in one of his famous quotes has said "Sure I am that this day, now, we are the masters of our fate. That the task which has been set us is not above our strength. That its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our cause, and an unconquerable willpower, salvation will not be denied us".
I am on my track towards salvation - try to reincarnate myself :)) Freedom is what I am praying for .. Peace and contentment what I am looking for ... Justice is what I am cultivating ! ...
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Dil bole hadippa :)
A reader must be thinking "whats this all about with the name of a weired hindi movie" .. but trust me nothing better is coming to my mind at this point of time:D .. what really inspired me in this movie to write a blog was a dialogue delivered by the lady actor implying something like "an ordinary girl having a dream to play cricket at national level faces huge resistance from everybody else, citing probable failure and encouragement to play in petty girls' team or so...."..
I was again going through the case study of my own life and a couple of others known.. OK , let do an exercise, try and figure out neighbors , friends , relatives etc who keep on reminding us "what we deserve and how big we can grow or what great we can achieve and be somebody like Kalpana Chawla, Dhirubhai Ambani, Karan Johar , Bernini or Shahrukh Khan !" versus "what we dont deserve and pertinent limitations to grow in life"... we would certainly notice that the second group would be more in number, no offence meant, thats the trend !! I am again fortunate,that I had been always reminded of what I can do - could not stop mentioning my little cousin sister who always had been like a messiah keeping on reminding me what I deserve and what great qualities I possess !!She had always been uplifting me and still does, mentioning the truth that failures all around are never to be related to and she insisted that I am talented, I am powerful and I simply deserve the best ... She was the one who have always highlighted my strengths and encouraged me for all those things which many other discouraged because of failures they've witnessed ... I thank God for such a sister and then of course my parents, husband and rest of the family ...
You know what I feel, Motivation is the key thing we really need , MENTORSHIP is what we yearn for .. for every new venture, for every dream we want to live - small or big. Believer you me, we are and would be faced with tremendous opposing force bagged with negatives all around whenever we try to grow in any arena! But, the question is do we look at the failures and step back or do we get encouraged with the successful mass and step forward !! Surprisingly, the normal human tendency is being skeptical about the failure and keeping away from significant ventures, though we all deserve success if we can really work towards it !! When a girl and a guy fall in love in an inter cast marriage in our society, they face tremendous resistance because of prevailing failures or myths or misconceptions, but the couple who has faith in themselves stick on and they say "oh cummon, we know ourselves better than what you do, and we do trust ourselves more than you outsiders eh!! I wondering why such resistances and objections and negatives exist on earth!Woohoo,and here I get the answer - probably we get exactly what we deserve.God rewards the one who has faith in himself and has the tenacity to fight for an achievement like the toppers in our school - as simple as that! Actually this is certainly not an easy job to fight resistances and be a winner - A Good mentor is essential for that like my sister for me !
The movie had a strong message , a girl who has the faith of playing cricket at a national level will do everything good to reach the national level match to play on the field and be a winner and a coach would be veto power for that ! Whats the big deal ! Anyone can turn out being a winner in every possible venture we take up for his growth !For that, certainly we ought to have faith in ourselves and God, work towards that religiously without any excuses and look at one successful citation if it exists and ignore 100 failures even if they come n try to get us ... i believe if 1 person succeeds in what i intend to do and 10 people have failed in that, that 1 person cant be more intelligent and capable than what I am !!
Winning is a mindset, even failures witness that ... Being a winner is all in the mind ... The dictating spirit is "Cummon , lets do it !"
I was again going through the case study of my own life and a couple of others known.. OK , let do an exercise, try and figure out neighbors , friends , relatives etc who keep on reminding us "what we deserve and how big we can grow or what great we can achieve and be somebody like Kalpana Chawla, Dhirubhai Ambani, Karan Johar , Bernini or Shahrukh Khan !" versus "what we dont deserve and pertinent limitations to grow in life"... we would certainly notice that the second group would be more in number, no offence meant, thats the trend !! I am again fortunate,that I had been always reminded of what I can do - could not stop mentioning my little cousin sister who always had been like a messiah keeping on reminding me what I deserve and what great qualities I possess !!She had always been uplifting me and still does, mentioning the truth that failures all around are never to be related to and she insisted that I am talented, I am powerful and I simply deserve the best ... She was the one who have always highlighted my strengths and encouraged me for all those things which many other discouraged because of failures they've witnessed ... I thank God for such a sister and then of course my parents, husband and rest of the family ...
You know what I feel, Motivation is the key thing we really need , MENTORSHIP is what we yearn for .. for every new venture, for every dream we want to live - small or big. Believer you me, we are and would be faced with tremendous opposing force bagged with negatives all around whenever we try to grow in any arena! But, the question is do we look at the failures and step back or do we get encouraged with the successful mass and step forward !! Surprisingly, the normal human tendency is being skeptical about the failure and keeping away from significant ventures, though we all deserve success if we can really work towards it !! When a girl and a guy fall in love in an inter cast marriage in our society, they face tremendous resistance because of prevailing failures or myths or misconceptions, but the couple who has faith in themselves stick on and they say "oh cummon, we know ourselves better than what you do, and we do trust ourselves more than you outsiders eh!! I wondering why such resistances and objections and negatives exist on earth!Woohoo,and here I get the answer - probably we get exactly what we deserve.God rewards the one who has faith in himself and has the tenacity to fight for an achievement like the toppers in our school - as simple as that! Actually this is certainly not an easy job to fight resistances and be a winner - A Good mentor is essential for that like my sister for me !
The movie had a strong message , a girl who has the faith of playing cricket at a national level will do everything good to reach the national level match to play on the field and be a winner and a coach would be veto power for that ! Whats the big deal ! Anyone can turn out being a winner in every possible venture we take up for his growth !For that, certainly we ought to have faith in ourselves and God, work towards that religiously without any excuses and look at one successful citation if it exists and ignore 100 failures even if they come n try to get us ... i believe if 1 person succeeds in what i intend to do and 10 people have failed in that, that 1 person cant be more intelligent and capable than what I am !!
Winning is a mindset, even failures witness that ... Being a winner is all in the mind ... The dictating spirit is "Cummon , lets do it !"
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