Christmas or Christmas eve? New year's day or the New year's eve?

Ho Ho Ho... Hope you all had a great Christmas!

I just love this season. It brings home a lot of joy and happiness.. pure joy that melts in your mouth, yep, you are right.. ;) endless chocolates, Christmas cake and sweets effectively ruining my diet. While munching on some Ferrero Rocher chocolates and swirling in the balls of chocolate and nuts this afternoon, I was thinking which is the most joyous part of a festival? The day before the actual celebration when there is a lot of preparation, anticipation and excitement or the day of the celebration? Christmas starts days before the 25th of December right. I start the season by watching Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes from my ever favorite sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S. This is not just for Christmas, ;) my birthdays start with 'The one where they all turn 30'. I just like to have a good laugh! I enjoy my small Christmas shopping. I walk around the Mission Street here in Pondicherry. Small shops that sell Christmas trees and decorations are set on the pavements during the season. I love going through all the bright jingly stuff.

Then starts the tree decoration process with all those colorful glittering balls, stars, bows, tiny Santas, tinsel, lights et all! Until the day of Christmas, the jitters and glitters continue everyday! And then Bam! Its over! Now what? I have New Year to look forward to! The same happens with New year's eve. It is the 31st of December we are all more thrilled about, busy making up resolutions that will probably last one month. With bundles of hope and new aspirations we look forward to the New year. However, we all know the fact that, how our New year pans out will not just depend on our resolutions and the holiday season's hang over! ;) I mean we got to get into some real action, N'est-ce pas? :) I had spent my Christmas vacation of 2013 in Mumbai. It was a fun trip with family, jolly and eventful. Now, nothing would explain my first week of the New Year better than this meme.

Haha! I seriously had not planned or worked for anything different! That was a lesson learnt! Mmmm.. Will 2015 be different? Will let you know! :)

I personally enjoy the Eve more than the Big day! What about you?

Here's wishing you all a wonderful and lovely New Year!
Bubye fellas! :) :)

The game of survival!

Is life a game of survival? I ask myself as I sit here writing this on a weekday afternoon. I am home on a Tuesday afternoon instead of being at work. I have been suffering from back pains every now and then since the beginning of the year. Doctors, x-rays, exercises have become a routine. Well, to be honest, exercises didn't become a routine and that's why I am here, not working. Doctors say its due to my bad postures, sitting for hours in front of my computer, very less physical activity, blah blah. Hey there.. don't worry this is not a 'Bored software engineer suddenly turned into a self improvement guru' story.

But the most prominent thing in my life in the past two months has been pain. I read books, watched TEDx videos on health and dealing with pain. One book suggested that I think of all the things I am thankful for in my life when I am in pain. Gratitude! This way whenever the pain gets bad you concentrate on all the great things in your life and not on the pain. It did help a little. But in this busy rat race of a life... Okay I hear you saying 'oh.. come on.. I am not in a race. My life is quiet fun!'.

Okay even if you are not in a race, 5 days of work, two days of fun or relaxation, lots of new stuff to learn and explore... Too much in the basket! Well, that's not bad. Yeah it wasn't all bad. I started learning to skate. Didn't finish it though. Learning French. Learnt Yoga which I stopped doing regularly after a year! Learnt about Psychology.. Advertising.. Programming.. But I failed to learn the most important of all things. My body. My mind. And what I was doing to them!

Most living things in the world are just in a game of survival. You see how a cheetah or a tiger has to pee and declare its territory, hunt and bring food and thus become the leader of the gang. I wonder if most people are doing the same, playing a game of survival. Work to make ends meet, to raise their children, to give their children better life, to be a master in their field of subject, to have a decent standard of living as per the 'what your society thinks' scale. Well good job doing all that. But most of us tend to ignore the machine that is going through all of this. We forget to pay attention to our body as long as it listens to us. It is high time we listen to it.

Well what did I learn by listening to my body?

• Human body is not meant for sitting for hours together. It is a must that you take small breaks every now and then during long hours of sitting. Go to the wash room or vending machine or take a stroll in and around the work place.
• Discipline is difficult but a must for healthy life. You can train yourself by repeating the activities of your choice everyday. You will fail and give up in the beginning. But push yourself for a little longer every time you are tempted to quit.
• You really know how much you need to eat. Just listen to your stomach and watch what you eat.
• Body is more like a machine. You need to lubricate it, keep it in active mode and not in couch potato mode for it to function properly. Exercise is a must.
• Study yourself. Your thoughts, posture, the way you carry yourself, how you react to different situations and everything about yourself.

So go study yourself!

In the pursuit of faith...

  She went to the beach everyday. But today was different. The entire beach was decorated with serial lights to celebrate the Independence Day. The secretariat, the Gandhi statue and the Kargil Memorial were shining happily in their new attire. It looked like they had a beauty competition between themselves. She imagined that the waves were swallowed by jealousy as the crowd which came every day to appreciate their beauty, was suddenly attracted by those buildings. "It wont last long!", She could hear them smirk. On that note, they continued to rise and fall against the rocks nonchalantly.

  She admired the beach. Yes, there was no sand here to dig holes or build sand castles. But she adored the neat dikes, the stone benches and the pavement where people walked and jogged. She stood there inhaling the immense beauty of the beach. Sometimes the vastness of the sea stunned her. She told herself, "May be this here is the God, the Faith the world talks about!" She never understood faith. She asked herself several times how to develop faith in someone or something. But when she was here in the beach, she was able to embrace faith.

   In this happiness and peace she saw him. She admired him for his faith in life, for his faith in god. When she was not at the beach, she found Faith in him. Her heart swelled and collapsed with every wave. She missed him a lot. In him she found the tranquility, the serenity and the power of the Sea! She looked at the infinite sea, the supreme power and thanked Her for bringing him in her life. She began to cherish the distance between them that made her love him even more. 

Farewell!

We often do not realize the value of things that are close to us. Do we? When someone who has been a part of our daily life has to leave, to take a new road in the journey of life, suddenly there comes this hollow feeling. A sudden empty space in our life. Makes me wonder if it's true that we are all one and the same. Minions of the single vast mighty universe, perhaps! :)

No matter what, the clock keeps ticking infinitely and so do we move on along with it. Sometimes, those who left stick to us or we stick to them in spite of the distance. I have come to know that, in the end, all that matters is the love and blessings we have earned during our stint in this world.

This post is dedicated to a friend of mine who is about to start a new life. I wish you all the happiness and love in this world! :) And I hope this friendship lasts for a life time! :)

Good luck dude!!!

The celebrity mania...

Ever wonder what did our parents do when they visited places as a kid? What did they do on Mother's day? I don't know what they did, but they definitely did not spend most of their time taking photos to upload on Facebook and did not keep counting the likes every now and then. They did not wish their parents, who were not in Facebook, on Facebook. They did not have Facebook back then. I see people who not only count their likes but also insist, 'insist' would be a lighter word here, 'pester' their friends to like their photo so it would reach 100! Yey! Congratulations! You got 100 likes.. So!? 

Wanting to be liked and to be accepted as a part of a group is human nature. Sometimes, I wonder if Facebook, in one way or the other, is making an impact on this human nature. All of us want to look good and naturally, we are all happy when we are complimented for our looks or our work. With its brilliant methods of 'like', 'share' and notifications, has Facebook led to increased flaunting? We see people checking in from airports, but nobody wants to check in from the jam packed local bus in the city. But seriously... Why would someone do that! ;) I have seen posts about having taken a leak! Duh! We don't want to know about your bio-break schedule! 

I am not against Facebook or anything. Don't get me wrong here! I do agree that people connect and stay in touch with friends, promote their business and do so many other things in Facebook. But on some level, Facebook has created the need for 'Public display of things'. Public display of 'whatever it is' is an individual choice. There is nothing wrong about it unless it disturbs or affects someone. But the 'need' for public display can lead us into a pitfall, an exaggeration of life!  Facebook might be creating teens who derive their confidence and self image out of the number of likes they receive, adding to the peer pressure. 

Moreover, look at the time we would be saving if we add up all those teeny tiny moments spent checking the notifications and likes. 

Where do all the ideas go!?

There has been a lot of buzz about Satya Nadella, an Indian born, becoming the CEO of Microsoft. There were people mocking at those who were feeling proud about it. Their point is that he had to go to USA to reach such a great height. He is not even an Indian anymore and you can't take credit for it and you have got no reason to be proud of it. Well, I agree with them. Why is it hard for someone to succeed in India? Why don't we encourage budding entrepreneurs? Why don't we give way for innovations? Well, I must admit, things are changing these days. There are number of successful young entrepreneurs coming out with brilliant ideas. The social media has made it much more easier. But I feel that's only a portion of the youngsters in India. What about the rest? Do we all dream big... big enough to reach the stars? When I say why is it hard to succeed in India, I am not talking about the facilities, standard of education or infrastructure in our country. Its much simpler than that. I am talking about our thought process. How many of us really think about making it big?
I personally feel that not all of us are provided with enough freedom and support to think out of the box. For many Indian youngsters, the first problem arises when they are in a relationship.. Boyfriend... Girlfriend stuff, yeah. Most of our Indian parents cannot still digest the fact that their more than 20 year old son/daughter is in a relationship! Some of them feel its even wrong to chose your own life partner! Of course, caste is their problem. So they spend all their energy giving a tough time to these kids, trying to get them out of the relationship. And that's why most of the young generation's energy and time is spent in trying to face these problems, trying to convince their parents. If  basic things like love and healthy relationships are made so complicated and unattainable, how could someone go to the next level of thinking out of the box... taking their life to the next level, setting bigger goals, contributing to the society and so on. To be more clear, you must have heard about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. For those of you who haven't, here you go:

Here is the link for the Wikipedia page:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs.

I wonder, may be, If all the youngsters are given this freedom, the number of success stories, the number of young achievers will be much more than what it is currently!

Life lessons from Flappy Bird!

Yeah, Life lessons from Flappy Bird! I am not so much into games. Recently, I saw all this hype about Flappy Bird and thought, lemme check it out. Well, its a simple game. I guess most of you gamers out there would have mastered it by now. But it did take me quite a number of attempts to score 2! As I progressed through the game, I realized what was slowing me down. You know every time you cross the hurdle there comes the 'Ting!' with the score in the center of the screen. Every time I made a new score or every time I managed to continuously cross many of those green towers or whatever they are, I got all excited with the series of 'Ting!' 'Ting!' 'Ting!' and the points popping up and the next second, there goes the birdie landing on the floor.. 'Thud!'. Well this is common to most games, yeah! I thought to myself, this is what all those wise elderly people mean when they say, do not fix your eyes on the target, instead concentrate in the present and enjoy the journey. So simple and can be applied to everything! Life lesson from Flappy Bird! Didn't I tell ya! ;) 

Solitude...

Not everyday do we really realize those pearls of wisdom about life... those that we have heard from so many people so many times, come across in Facebook posts,  read in books.. Reading about them is one thing and realizing it by yourself when you are all alone at home staring at the ceiling is totally a different thing. The latter makes you truly understand it. We all search for our purpose in life. We want to be happy and we believe we will be able to achieve that state of 'happiness forever' by doing certain things, that we call as our passion, our dream and so on. 'Happiness is within you'. Not the first time you are hearing this, yeah, I know. It is so relieving when you are finally aware that you are making choices each and every moment. You can choose to be happy or sad or neutral or whatever you want at this moment. Thus you create your life by consciously adding the ingredients you want! It is under your control. Your happiness is not attached to anything external, not to your life partner, not to your parents, not to your friends. None! They share this wonderful journey of life with you. They are not your happiness. Realizing this gives me a sense of freedom, that I am responsible for myself and everything around me and that I have nothing to regret. Well, Solitude is one of the best teachers in life. N'est-ce pas? :)