Ma

“I am not talking to you. You make me eat leaves! They are green, they are yuck and they are LEAVES!”. One of my first memories of my short vegan life! As my temper touched the roof, I stood inside the bathroom. The same bathroom that witnessed the crime of a bowl of spinach rice being flushed to oblivion! I had locked myself in, yelling periodically in midst of my sobs. The lady on the other side of the door was persuading me to let myself out. But I wouldn’t budge until she promised me to never stuff my face with veggies! This incident marked the initiation of a test – test of patience for a woman who I have always pushed to the wall; a woman who makes me wonder, “if this is how a lady is supposed to behave, I am surely a devil in disguise!”; a woman who has redefined the word patience; a woman who’s taught me the meaning of unconditional love and always left me wondering if I was even capable to returning it in minimal amounts! ;a woman of solid principles and a precious heart; a woman I call “Ma”. 

 Sometimes its best to leave things unspoken coz you may not do justice to them while capturing them in flow of words. What I feel for Mom is one such thing. I guess all of you would agree with me on this one. But I would still go ahead with my sincere efforts to recognize and appreciate this excellent creation of God, my mother. Being a home maker for around 30 years, Ma has shouldered the most vital responsibility of holding the family together and keeping us grounded at all points in time. I shudder at the very thought of not having my Mom serving as LOC during war times with Dad!  It’s surprises me at how the job of a home maker is thankless and doesn’t come with a retirement age! Imagine a work environment with peers/managers not stopping to as much as acknowledge your work and get back to you when you least expect only to dump more work on you! Sucks right? Now imagine working for free! Did you imagine that? Sorry, I couldn’t even think of it as a remote possibility!!! 

 It always amazes me how my salary sprouts wings and flies out of the window even before month end! Looking back at my growing up years, I had demands, few more expensive than the others! I would always use my puppy dog eyes to my advantage, “Ma! I want!”. Not hearing a no for an answer, my please would transform into, “Ma!!! I want! I WANT!!“. Guess what? I did get what I want. But I never knew what transpired between the initial no and the final conceding yes. I probably would never know, just like all the sacrifices Mom has made over the years, without keeping a count.  It’s said sacrificing comes naturally to a woman. As unfair and chauvinistic I find this statement, looking at the examples in my life, I know its true. I can’t count the number of sleepless nights Ma has had coz of my impending exams! It hurts me to relive those moments where my dreams took precedence over her needs. I can’t cook to save my life! But commenting on her cooking is like breathing! I am ashamed of all the times I cringed looking at the food, “Don’t you know I don’t like this! Why do you keep preparing this!!” without as much as sparing a thought that probably she liked it, probably she woke up at unearthly hours just to make sure I don’t leave house on an empty stomach.  My first ever drawing was made with my Mom holding my little hand, struggling to hold the crayon. My master piece comprised of a house and 2 trees. I was proud of it. She was proud of me! As the time passed, she was still proud of me. Not that I gave her a lot of reasons to feel that way. But the very thought that Ma appreciates me instills faith in me. “I must have something good going for Ma to feel this way about me“, I think. All the competitions I have participated, all the competitions I have won, have 2 things in common – an utterly nervous me and a loving confident presence next to me, Ma.  Being the only child, I redefined tantrums. From plaiting my hair to draping my first sari, from my first day at school to my last exam in college, my journey has seen her being a silent witness. I talk about a woman who gave away everything she wanted to make way for my dreams. She lived every minute of her motherhood making me the person I am today. I am very proud, not for who I have become but for the reason I am who I am. To say she changed my life would be unfair, for she is my life. I have lived in her for 9 months – a bond, which I may not even understand completely; the same bond which gave her reason to be what she is now. Who say’s there’s a woman behind every successful man? I say there’s a woman behind anything successful! Mom indeed is the world. Hands that rocked my cradle surely did rule my world. 

It ain't real!

Someone once said, "Life's a movie." I really wish I could summon that someone and give him a piece of my mind right now!

Reality check people. Life is a movie only when "Real life" is misspelled as "Reel life"! Stop grinning! Seriously! How many of you have actually heard instrumentals in the background when you found your special someone? How many times have the temple bells gone berserk when you encountered an injustice? How many times have you seen one man beating up 20 people and standing on his feet post the "mega-fight"?

I was involved in a freak accident last week. Freak - coz I did look like one, during and after the incident! Accident - well, I am trying to make it look cool! Anyways, continuing with my story. As I attempted to board the severely delayed late night cab, I felt a shooting pain in my calves. My calves did look like I had worked on them my whole life, all tight and shapely! I surely would've admired their muscular structure hadn't it been for the sharp pain threatening to go up my spine! I took a seemingly wise decision of getting of the cab and stretching my beauties. But hang on! Nothing is my life can be non-animated can it? 

I have an obedient body. Oh yeah! It's usually very obedient, very giving. I can't count the number of times it has held back regurgitation to avoid public display of displeasure or given me enough strength of conquer dizziness until I could find a nice place to rest my posterior! It has almost always given me enough time to have a silent conversation with it, to control it by force or plead! But alas, this wasn't one of those times!

I am barely on my feet when my beautiful legs decide they are way too delicate to handle my popularity-gaining-plump body! Before I knew it, my elite posterior was pasted on the ground. My eye were fixed to the ground too. But out of sheet shock and embarrassment of providing a tax-free entertainment to people around. Yes people, I had fallen hard. My butt did bite the dust! It must have been hear wrenching-ly hilarious. Usually, at such situations I laugh my ass off at people. I am sure their spirits were doing the same at me! In the end, I had to take my sorry figure and put in back on the back seat of the cab.

This brings me back to the topic. Had it been a movie, a handsome beast  would have rescued me in his muscular chunk of arms. If it was a really corny movie, we would have been in the same position, looking into each other's eyes until the song ends! And if it was a cornier movie I would have surely got my calf muscle attended to (if u know what I mean! ) But the point is, none of this happened! The only thing holding my fall was the concrete and need I tell you that it was far away from any cushioning! If you don't trust me ask my borrowed laptop that sits on my lap as my body is stretched on my bed!

So what in a movie could have culminated into an eternal love story, in real life turned into a week's bed rest! So there you go, life ain't a movie! Stop hearing music in your head, in all probabilities a branch just fell on you or you walked right into a wall!

P.S: You wanna make fun of my spine, first grow one before confronting moi!

Present

The most under-rated truth in the universe - the present. Puzzled? Well, let's have an opinion poll. How many of you are currently thinking of the big meeting lined up for tomorrow or planning for the weekend or dreaming of shopping for the marriage you would be attending next month? Ok, I can see 50%  of you raising your hands! Now, the rest of you. Are you thinking of things in the past you regret or wish to change or are you reminiscing the special moments you spent with your close ones to give you enough positiveness to carry on with your daily chores? Some of you are not raising your hands, so I urge the others to raise both their hands to compensate for this!!! So need I say more as to why "the present" is the most under-rated truth?

Few weeks back, work was chasing me like a possessed dog to bite me in my elite posterior. Being the nervous cat that I turn into at certain occasions, I plonked my pretty little butt on a high wall, hoping the dog doesn't get a taste of my flesh! The wall was my safety zone. I knew I was unreachable. But the only thought that ran through my head was, "what if that dog somehow managed to leap over the wall and take me down with it!". Could it cover that distance? Hell no! Could it get a taste of me? No-freaken-way! But did I waste my time on wall fretting about the "what-if's"? Hell yeah!!

My wall was my time off from work, a weekend, divine 48 hours of my life, which I'll never get back even if I were to kill the dog! Possessed dog was my work and surprisingly come Monday, it no longer seemed possessed! It was a domesticated pet which I had personified as plain evil! So owing to my misconceptions and pre-conceived notions I had ruined precious moments of my life. So you see what I am getting to? I wasted my today, coz of something I did yesterday and thinking about tomorrow's something that never happened!

How many of us have a hunch back coz of the burden of yesterday nicely resting on our backs? I can safely say that I have a spinal disorder owing to this! Yes, I have my share of shit. So does everybody! But the first thing you need to do with shit, is clean it off you! And not carry it as a heap on your shoulders! (Kinda gross, I know. Apologies!!!)

Coming to the essence of this post. The one thing that your future depends on is how you tackle your pasts in the present. That doesn't mean that you time travel to you future (i,e day dream in the present) or go back in time to change things. Deal with your issues in the present. No point tracing it back or procrastinating it till they reach a point of no return. Don't let your future become the "present" you spent thinking of your "past" or planning a "future" that never arrived.

The present offers you a present of this moment. Accept it graciously, live it completely.

Success network

Change is the only constant. Well said or should I say extremely apt. Seasons change, situations change, people change. Everyone and everything in life is susceptible to changes.

 Keeping this mind, I would go ahead and say, the definition of things also change in time. After all its a very subjective thing and it depends on who was defining what and when. Lemme give you an example. What is success? To different people it means different things. To the same person, it might mean different things at different points in time. While you were growing up, you defined success as a getting a job that payed you well to sponsor all your leisure activities. Your independence was the measure of your success.

One day, you were all grown up. You got the job you desired. Money danced in your hands. Things that at one point in time were luxury became a part of daily life - expensive restaurants, fancy coffee shops, shop-till-you-drop days, movies and everything that you desired when you had limited resources. But in the "grown up" eyes, were you successful then? No way!

At this point, you decided that you need to be the best at your craft or atleast be perceived as the best in your craft. Most of you didn't know what you were doing and why you were doing it. But you still persisted, coz you wanted more resources for even bigger dreams! You wanted shiny toys and a concrete jungle to call your own. Years passed. You eventually got them, even though most of you were burdened under unimaginable debts. But as long as this was obsolete to the world, you had no reason to bother. You could now flash what seemed rightfully yours! Now the thought of redefining success hits you again.

This time you being successful is a measure of your goodness/ compatibility with your spouse. Enter children and the definition of success is up-ed by a notch! So I hope none of you missed the constantly changing trend.  There are things that you wish for. More often than not, when you get them, you don't have the same value for them as you had while you were wishing for them.

But would you call this success? As I said earlier, this is merely subjective. But if you think this chain reaction of need for material things is success, you probably need to delve deep into the topic; if not now, then probably in due course of time.

Success has been associated with phrases like "survival of the fittest". This gets me thinking. Couple of weeks back, I was at one of the holy places in south India - a lake, where people "supposedly" got rid of their sins (not to mention dirtying the water beyond explanation!). This lake was flooded with fish. The devotees would throw bread crumbs at the fish, which would jump on each other to get the largest bite of food. Now, isn't this what all of us eventually end up doing? Jump over each other to get the easy things that are being handed over than explore the opportunities for finding our own food? So what makes us different from those fish? As I see it, barring the physical form, we exhibit the exact same tendencies. So how are we superior?

Recently, at the Robin Sharma leadership session, I bumped into this gentleman who was running from pillar to post in order to establish a strong network of people, to expand his business. Even though I thought it was extremely hilarious in the beginning, he had the last laugh! While the rest of us were pulled back from approaching Mr Sharma due to various reasons, from hesitation to laziness, this gentleman managed to get an autograph/photograph/ personal time with Mr Sharma and the CEO of the group! He might have made an ass of himself in front of the crowd, but he did get what he wanted. Now what was more important? What he wanted or how he looked in front people? So there you go. You can be successful even though people think otherwise!

This would be my definition of success. The minute you stop wondering and giving importance to the trash talk going on around you and devote yourself to your goal, you have achieved success. You may not be successful in the first attempt, but as a person you have not failed. It's ok to fail others but never fail yourself. No one can be a better you than you!


P.S : Dreams of today are reality of tomorrow provided you have faith. 

Mind, Body and more

It was a bright Saturday morning! Yes! you read it right! Saturday MORNING! I managed to achieve a once in a blue moon feat of waking up at 5:30 am on a weekend! Now lemme take you into a flash back mode. 24 hours before this eventful morning, I sat pondering about the twists and turns in my life. (I do that a lot!!!) At every single turn I had two constant companions. They pulled me through every situation with as much grace as I could muster. They were by my side when I was riding the high waves. They were by my side when I found myself claustrophobic under the same waves! Two constant companions that are always present, not just with me, but with every single one of you - Mind and Body.

All of us have complaints about our body; either we are short or we are excessively stretched!; either we occupy two seats in a bus or we can fit on a fuel tank of a bike; either we have evergreen forest growing on our bodies or we see fading glory on our scalps! Phew.. Enough of the list. Just hope you get the essence of it. The point is, no one is perfect. No one matches the definition of the word "perfect" in the rule book coz no one has ever and I mean EVER read this rule book! It's a thick volume and most importantly, we are humans! We do not have time for self improvement? Correct?

I have read tonnes of articles on maintaining a good bod and attaining peace of mind. Somehow the pictures accompanying the article were a lot more intriguing! I have always maintained that I stopped aging at 24! (oh yeah! It's a true story!) But for the past few days, the mirror in my room, the mirrors everywhere, seem to be telling a story I can't quite comprehend! That's when the realization stuck me, 24 hours before I write this post.

As I am applying brakes on my downhill journey with as much fanaticism as I can muster, the truth remains - peaceful mind resides in a healthy body. In today's world, where serenity has gone obscure, all of us at some point crave for calmness and stability in our lives. Working 16 hours a day has it's own gains and losses. (You  gain weight and lose hair!!!!)

No, I am not typing incoherently coz I don't fit into my clothes or my mirror frame. I am typing coz this realization may actually make me look the way I feel, like a rockstar! Alright alright, jokes apart. All of us are selfish at some point in life. All of us put ourselves first. It's most definitely a good thing. But what amazes me is how we neglect vital things that we own, that already belong to us to continue our obsession with far fetched things of little use! I mean, come on,  what's the use of an expensive evening gown when there's no body to sport it? What's the point in having a huge place to live physically when your mind is shunted!

For all my fellow software professionals, let "sick leaves" just remain as the fake stories concocted to achieve that almost impossible vacation you have been wanting to take! Your body is your temple, your mind - your God. Please worship it with passion, before either of the two decide to accelerate your journey down hill!


P.S : Make time for exercise, else you'll have to make time for illness!