Diwali at home!
It’s strange how things change in life. So near, yet so far...It's in March 2002 that I moved to Chennai when I took up a job with a business partner of Tata Telecom. One year passed by, and I shifted to Frost & Sullivan. Three and half years have rolled by, and I'm here at Great Lakes, since 6 months to pursue my MBA. Life at F&S was a roller-coaster ride, fast paced, highly consuming and quite a lot of long-distance traveling. Only this Diwali, when I came to Bangalore did I realize how fast paced my life has been for the past 4 years. It’s been more than 4 years since I spent more than a week's time with my parents at a stretch. Thanks to my Internship at F&S, this gave me the flexibility of working from home. Not that it was easy call choosing between an offer from one of the world's biggest consulting firms (Mumbai based) and F&S offer. However, my determination to spend time with my parents and darling sis made my decision making easier. I am glad I made this decision. Period.
Diwali has always been a festival close to my heart. I just love the sight of Diyas arranged in all possible geometrical shapes, the umpteen number of colorful flowers my grandma does not stop buying throughout the 3 long days of festival, and most importantly the long list of sweets that are prepared at home and received from friends on Diwali. I love the children jumping with joy and screaming around, just adding to the noise of the bustling crackers. Every year my parents say' this year Diwali is not the same. not too many crackers, the spirit is not the same...etc...etc.
However, for me, the very sight of arrays of Diyas around me enough to sparkle the festive mood in me. Although, I too agree that not many relatives visit on Diwali as earlier. With the onset of nuclear families, Diwali for many has become a reason to splurge money and buy something new - a TV, DVD, Fridge , a car, jewellery or just new clothes. It’s more of a self-centered reason to be extravagant in spending on self than considering it as a reason for friends and relatives to get tog tether and a good time.
Mythology says Deepavali - the actual Sanskrit word, marked the celebrations in Ayodhya when Ram & sita returned back home after Lord Ram's victory over Ravan. It is also said that this is the day Lord Shiva accepted Goddess Shakti as his better half and became - Ardhanarishwar.
Esoteric Significance
Flowers are an integral part of Diwali as are many decorations. While Deepavali is popularly known as the "festival of lights", the most significant esoteric meaning is "the awareness of the inner light".
Central to Hindu philosophy, is the assertion that there is something beyond the physical body and mind which is pure, infinite, and eternal, called the Atman. Just as we celebrate the birth of our physical being, Deepavali is the celebration of this Inner Light, in particular the knowing of which outshines all darkness (removes all obstacles and dispels all ignorance), awakening the individual to ones true nature, not as the body, but as the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent reality. With the realization of the Atman, comes universal compassion, love, and the awareness of the oneness of all things (higher knowledge). This brings Ananda (Inner Joy or Peace).
Diwali to me...
I guess, for me the esoteric significance is what matters the most. My belief in family values, the togetherness and the idea of just being with my family has been reinforced in me. I love having them around, though we might not spend too much time together, per se. I am glad I decided to do my internship at Bangalore. It’s been just 6 days since I came here, and I already love it soooooo much. These 20 days that I'm gonna be here is definitely gonna be the best days of my life! Life is rocking! Hope it does in the future also.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Half glass full or half glass empty…
I’m half done with my MBA at Great Lakes. Can’t believe it! Time has just flown by and so much has changed since then. We have finished 20 subjects and 20 more to go in the electives phase. Its time for our one month internship and most of my friends has left to their home towns, to pursue the same. It seems like life has come to a stand still. Except for me, and Manan, everyone else is gone. The cyber stream where we hang around all the time, if not in the classes attending lectures, seems so empty. The silence is killing and the void is unimaginable. It’s so strange, although all of us hang around in the same room for hours together; we are busy with our laptops doing our own things. But still, we feel the void even if one person is missing.
I hate to go to Cyber stream without my friends around. I miss Nitin sitting in the corner blogging endlessly on cool avenues or pagalguy.com, I miss Parag speaking on Dhirubhai Ambani’s phone and saying –“Roopaps, chai peene chal rahin hain kya?, I miss Sitashwa trying to bring down the height of my chair, I miss Ashwin asking me to suggest a song to play, I miss Manik fighting with me, calling me aunt Polly J…I miss them all for more than this, for just being there in my life…
Well, I’ll be gone to Blore in a couple of days…but these few days that I spent here without my friends around have really made me realize, how much I cherish these guys company at college!
I hate to go to Cyber stream without my friends around. I miss Nitin sitting in the corner blogging endlessly on cool avenues or pagalguy.com, I miss Parag speaking on Dhirubhai Ambani’s phone and saying –“Roopaps, chai peene chal rahin hain kya?, I miss Sitashwa trying to bring down the height of my chair, I miss Ashwin asking me to suggest a song to play, I miss Manik fighting with me, calling me aunt Polly J…I miss them all for more than this, for just being there in my life…
Well, I’ll be gone to Blore in a couple of days…but these few days that I spent here without my friends around have really made me realize, how much I cherish these guys company at college!
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Fish!
Fish!
I happened to read this book – Fish! By Stephen C. Lundin, Harry Paul, and John Christensen. The title read – A remarkable way to boost Moral and Improve Results. Although, initially it seemed like one of those zillions of self-help books written, this book impressed me a lot in some ways. Firstly, it’s a small book with some 100 plus pages, and the language used is very simple. The most striking thing about it is the example the authors’ use –the world famous Pike Place Fish market, to teach us lessons to improve our performance at work.
The story is about a middle-aged lady manager – Mary Jane, who is made in charge of a non-performing unit in her company. While the company has great hopes for her, she is unwilling to take this risk. Having lost her husband recently, Mary Jane is put in a spot and her position seems challenged due to this assignment. She has only two choices, to stay, work her way around this problem or just give up and look for another job. That’s when she happens to visit this fish market, where she learns the most important lessons of her life. The book speaks of four important things to learn from this fish market to be replicated at Mary Jane’s business unit:
Choose Your Attitude,
Play,
Be Present
Make Their Day!
Mary Jane’s team comes out as a winner by implementing these lessons from the fish market, and Mary Jane goes on to win the Chairwoman’s Award. That day, Mary Jane open’s her journal to read one of her favorite selections – a piece written by John Gardner on the meaning of life. This is how it reads:
“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.”
These lines appealed a lot to me and I hope it does to all those who read it.
I happened to read this book – Fish! By Stephen C. Lundin, Harry Paul, and John Christensen. The title read – A remarkable way to boost Moral and Improve Results. Although, initially it seemed like one of those zillions of self-help books written, this book impressed me a lot in some ways. Firstly, it’s a small book with some 100 plus pages, and the language used is very simple. The most striking thing about it is the example the authors’ use –the world famous Pike Place Fish market, to teach us lessons to improve our performance at work.
The story is about a middle-aged lady manager – Mary Jane, who is made in charge of a non-performing unit in her company. While the company has great hopes for her, she is unwilling to take this risk. Having lost her husband recently, Mary Jane is put in a spot and her position seems challenged due to this assignment. She has only two choices, to stay, work her way around this problem or just give up and look for another job. That’s when she happens to visit this fish market, where she learns the most important lessons of her life. The book speaks of four important things to learn from this fish market to be replicated at Mary Jane’s business unit:
Choose Your Attitude,
Play,
Be Present
Make Their Day!
Mary Jane’s team comes out as a winner by implementing these lessons from the fish market, and Mary Jane goes on to win the Chairwoman’s Award. That day, Mary Jane open’s her journal to read one of her favorite selections – a piece written by John Gardner on the meaning of life. This is how it reads:
“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.”
These lines appealed a lot to me and I hope it does to all those who read it.
Attitude!
After 2 months of demanding schedule at my MBA course, we finally got a long weekend and I decided to visit my parents at Bangalore. I had two other classmates of mine traveling with me and it was quite an interesting journey. We boarded the Lalbagh express that leaves at 3.45 pm from Chennai. I and my friend settled down in our seats and were joined by 2 couples for this journey, one old and one of them in their middle age. They were pretty much busy in their conversations, so were me and my friend all through the journey.
Train journeys are generally pretty interesting to me as they provide me an opportunity to pursue my favorite hobby (mind reading!). Yes, I do the same when I travel by bus too. The younger couple among the two sitting close to us, from their conversations, seemed to be either employed in Sri Lanka or Dubai and were probably visiting their folks back in India. Their conversations were pretty much limited to arrival and departure timings of various flights bound to these countries, or regarding the wireless services rates prevailing in India.
The older couple were quite most of the time. I and my friend were speaking about the various vendors who keep moving across the train throughout the journey and the various strategies they use to sell their products. A bookseller walked up to us and handed over a bunch of books to us and did not return for almost 10 min. My friend had no choice but keep them in his hands (as there is hardly any space left with 3 people sitting on each berth). Meanwhile, we glanced through the books, when it stuck us that this could be their strategy to sell as anybody doing so would get interested in at least one of the books.
Midway through our journey, a handicapped person (he had lost his both legs) came pushing himself on the floor, with a cleaning brush in his hands. The floor of the coach was as usual dirty with ground nut shells and mud scattered all over the place. Among all the people seated their, the old uncle spoke for the first time and asked this guy to cleanup the place, after which he paid him some money and sent him away. This gesture of the old man caught my attention and got me thinking on the civic sense left with the people of today. This old man simply blew me off with this gesture, and I learnt a lesson – to be thoughtful of helping the community in some way, whether big or small. What need did this man have to get the place cleaned when he was not even the one who had dirtied it, but I’m sure he had a sense of duty towards his surroundings which provoked him to initiate this gesture.
Train journeys are generally pretty interesting to me as they provide me an opportunity to pursue my favorite hobby (mind reading!). Yes, I do the same when I travel by bus too. The younger couple among the two sitting close to us, from their conversations, seemed to be either employed in Sri Lanka or Dubai and were probably visiting their folks back in India. Their conversations were pretty much limited to arrival and departure timings of various flights bound to these countries, or regarding the wireless services rates prevailing in India.
The older couple were quite most of the time. I and my friend were speaking about the various vendors who keep moving across the train throughout the journey and the various strategies they use to sell their products. A bookseller walked up to us and handed over a bunch of books to us and did not return for almost 10 min. My friend had no choice but keep them in his hands (as there is hardly any space left with 3 people sitting on each berth). Meanwhile, we glanced through the books, when it stuck us that this could be their strategy to sell as anybody doing so would get interested in at least one of the books.
Midway through our journey, a handicapped person (he had lost his both legs) came pushing himself on the floor, with a cleaning brush in his hands. The floor of the coach was as usual dirty with ground nut shells and mud scattered all over the place. Among all the people seated their, the old uncle spoke for the first time and asked this guy to cleanup the place, after which he paid him some money and sent him away. This gesture of the old man caught my attention and got me thinking on the civic sense left with the people of today. This old man simply blew me off with this gesture, and I learnt a lesson – to be thoughtful of helping the community in some way, whether big or small. What need did this man have to get the place cleaned when he was not even the one who had dirtied it, but I’m sure he had a sense of duty towards his surroundings which provoked him to initiate this gesture.
The Joy of Small Things
The Joy of Small Things...
I love traveling by the public transport, especially by bus. I used to travel for a little more than an hour everyday, on my way to college and back, while I was doing my engineering at Bangalore Institute of Technology. Now, all the thinking I used to do while traveling in the bus daily is something that would probably provide me enough content to write as a regular for months together. So, let me cut it short and come back to one specific incident that I encountered recently while traveling by bus. However, this time around it was in Chennai while I was on my way to office in the morning.
The best thing I like about traveling by the bus is the little time I get for myself to catch up with some reading, most of the times; it is something that I read to keep myself abreast with the current affairs. If I am not in a mood to read any printed medium, then I just decide to do mind reading. Yes, mind reading! I love to look at people, think, and analyze what might be going on in their minds. It is quite an interesting hobby, which I have pursued for more than 10 years now. Now, I have to mention that, luckily, I always end up taking the bus from its starting point, be it when I was at Bangalore or now in Chennai.
The other day, as per my usual routine, I got into a 23C at Besant Nagar Depot and found myself a comfortable window seat in the first row. I always prefer the first seat, because it has a fixed glass window and hence avoids the dust from blowing over my face. I must admit, I have a fetish for cleanliness. As the bus started on its journey towards Mount Road, my mind was deeply occupied in thinking about the book I had just finished reading - Deception Point by Dan Brown. Everyday, as my bus nears IIT Chennai, I make it a point to look out of the window, and wonder with respect, the kind of brilliant engineers this institute produces every year. Immediately after IIT Chennai is the Gandhi Mandapam stop, and as the bus neared this stop, I saw an old man waiting in anticipation for the bus in the bus stop. He was clad in a neat pair of trousers and a white shirt with a bag in his hand (it had to be one from Nalli/Saravana Stores/Kumarans/Pothys). In his case it was Saravana stores, and not to forget the trade mark vermilion on his forehead.
As the bus neared the bus stop, this old man's joy knew no bounds, and the eagerness on his face reflected the long time he had waited for this bus. However, being the typical Chennai Road Transport Corporation driver he was; the bus driver just drove at full-speed, right past the waiting passengers, only to stop a few yards beyond the bus stop. Lucky that he actually stopped, some drivers most of the time forget that there are stops in between the starting point and ending point of their bus routes).
All the while I was keenly watching this old man who was waiting for the bus, and the emotions that I managed to catch on his face in those few seconds is something I cannot explain in words. The excitement on his face seeing the bus nearing the stop changed to that of total disappointment as he thought the bus would not stop and finally, when the bus stopped, he ran towards the bus with all excitement, got into it and made himself comfortable in a seat near the driver. This transition of feelings from excitement to disappointment to absolute joy of finding a seat, all happened in a matter of couple of minutes, and the only thing that crossed my mind at that point of time was - The joy of small things!!
It is a different thing that the old man came back to normalcy after a few minutes, but this thought kept provoking me for long. How many times do we actually think about all the small incidents such as this, which actually gives us absolute happiness? Hardly any. Repeatedly, I am witness to incidents such as this, which only reinforces my belief in the school of thought that I have always believed in, which is- the most joyful things in life are the least expensive ones. How true!
I love traveling by the public transport, especially by bus. I used to travel for a little more than an hour everyday, on my way to college and back, while I was doing my engineering at Bangalore Institute of Technology. Now, all the thinking I used to do while traveling in the bus daily is something that would probably provide me enough content to write as a regular for months together. So, let me cut it short and come back to one specific incident that I encountered recently while traveling by bus. However, this time around it was in Chennai while I was on my way to office in the morning.
The best thing I like about traveling by the bus is the little time I get for myself to catch up with some reading, most of the times; it is something that I read to keep myself abreast with the current affairs. If I am not in a mood to read any printed medium, then I just decide to do mind reading. Yes, mind reading! I love to look at people, think, and analyze what might be going on in their minds. It is quite an interesting hobby, which I have pursued for more than 10 years now. Now, I have to mention that, luckily, I always end up taking the bus from its starting point, be it when I was at Bangalore or now in Chennai.
The other day, as per my usual routine, I got into a 23C at Besant Nagar Depot and found myself a comfortable window seat in the first row. I always prefer the first seat, because it has a fixed glass window and hence avoids the dust from blowing over my face. I must admit, I have a fetish for cleanliness. As the bus started on its journey towards Mount Road, my mind was deeply occupied in thinking about the book I had just finished reading - Deception Point by Dan Brown. Everyday, as my bus nears IIT Chennai, I make it a point to look out of the window, and wonder with respect, the kind of brilliant engineers this institute produces every year. Immediately after IIT Chennai is the Gandhi Mandapam stop, and as the bus neared this stop, I saw an old man waiting in anticipation for the bus in the bus stop. He was clad in a neat pair of trousers and a white shirt with a bag in his hand (it had to be one from Nalli/Saravana Stores/Kumarans/Pothys). In his case it was Saravana stores, and not to forget the trade mark vermilion on his forehead.
As the bus neared the bus stop, this old man's joy knew no bounds, and the eagerness on his face reflected the long time he had waited for this bus. However, being the typical Chennai Road Transport Corporation driver he was; the bus driver just drove at full-speed, right past the waiting passengers, only to stop a few yards beyond the bus stop. Lucky that he actually stopped, some drivers most of the time forget that there are stops in between the starting point and ending point of their bus routes).
All the while I was keenly watching this old man who was waiting for the bus, and the emotions that I managed to catch on his face in those few seconds is something I cannot explain in words. The excitement on his face seeing the bus nearing the stop changed to that of total disappointment as he thought the bus would not stop and finally, when the bus stopped, he ran towards the bus with all excitement, got into it and made himself comfortable in a seat near the driver. This transition of feelings from excitement to disappointment to absolute joy of finding a seat, all happened in a matter of couple of minutes, and the only thing that crossed my mind at that point of time was - The joy of small things!!
It is a different thing that the old man came back to normalcy after a few minutes, but this thought kept provoking me for long. How many times do we actually think about all the small incidents such as this, which actually gives us absolute happiness? Hardly any. Repeatedly, I am witness to incidents such as this, which only reinforces my belief in the school of thought that I have always believed in, which is- the most joyful things in life are the least expensive ones. How true!
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