In a perennial pursuit...

It happened 3 years ago. In a small and absolutely beautiful village called Ratnagiri in Maharashtra.

We were visiting the house of India’s freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak- the ‘Bal’ of the famous ‘Lal Bal Pal’ trio- which was being renovated for public exhibition.

As I moved about the place, I had a feeling of redolence but couldn’t put my finger on it. Taking the confused feel with me, I moved on.

Cut to present.

I went to my grandparents’ home for a week, thanks to a completed degree and delayed date of joining on the job.

It is then that the old feel came back to me.

The air was the same.

As weird as it may sound, I could make an absolute connect.

The ceiling fan-the kind which one wouldn’t normally find in today’s time- has a huge box for a regulator that sticks out the wall. It has now become smooth and edge-less from being in use for many decades.

My grandfather’s desk is decorated impeccably with his glasses, medicine, some documents, a diary and a pen arranged in exactly the same manner at any time of day since last 18 years when he retired.

There is an old radio set- decorated by a hand-woven and beautifully embroidered patch of cloth- whose print has come off with all the years of use.

The beds, or the ‘khaat’, I’m sure are a rare possession in any delhi household today. But they are being proudly used and by personal experience I admit, they are better than any bed!

The various calendars - with images of Hindu Gods and Goddesses covering almost the entire area on it - irrespective of their years, adorn the walls of the entire house.

These and many other things are not only reminiscent of my childhood but also drive home an important conclusion.

Never let any experience die in you. Always keep the feelings as well as the feel alive. Always.

You never know... what connects where and when.

This home is an integral part of me, as that ‘house’ will be too from now on.

You don’t necessarily have to play a major part in somebody’s life to make them an integral part of yours.

Sometimes, it’s the feeling of being connected- like with my grandparents’ home.

Other times it’s the FEEL of being connected- like with Late Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s house.

A message...

At first I thought I was still dreaming and it was again a nightmare. But when the alarm did not stop, I forced my brain to think why I had set the alarm for 5:45 am. I fought with myself, coming up with any unreasonable excuses my sleepyhead could concoct, still knowing what was committed had to be done.

It took all my will power for me to step out of the bed on the chilly winter floor. After fighting another urge to hop back in the blanket, I started putting on layers and layers of all the clothes in my wardrobe.

Slinging the camera, I stepped out of my room, cursing the camera-the cause of my discomfort today.

Ok… So I was headed to the playground to shoot the early-morning cricket match- a game I’ve always hated.

The ground is 10 mins away, if you walk leisurely on a sweet Sunday afternoon.

But ask me and I still feel it took me 30 minutes and my entire breath to reach there. But once there, I was glad I made it, although a bit late.

Out popped the camera and as I was about to click the first shot, horror struck me.

There was no battery in the camera.

I still remember the feeling. It was worst than plugging-in your cellphone for charging and forgetting to switch it on.

I had still not recovered from the run, yet I started running back towards my room to fetch what was left behind- the SOUL of my camera.

This happened almost a year back.

And now, for this New Year, I have a message.

Never leave your SOUL behind. If you do, you’ll be out there in the cold, running, out of breath to get it back.

You just cannot do without it.

Also, Keep your loved ones close. Never hold a grudge for anyone. Have lots of sunshine… for you never know when the Earth will die.

Keep smiling! J

Potpourri of my MBA

Sometimes, we are the prisoners, other times, the leaders or workers cutting envelopes… Zimbardo must be so happy in his grave right now.

I've lived for 22-23 years and NOT analysed myself as much as I've done these past 15 months.
What does it anyway lead to? I'm sure this self-introspective MBA paradigm runs across the country and all first class MBA colleges churn out hundreds- if not thousands- of top-notch managers year after year.

How differently would they, probably, act had they not been, say told that they are ENTJ (sorry my non-MBA friends…if I sound French) and THAT is why they behave as they behave.

Again, as I write this, the only thing that my mind is processing right now is an experimental design using an experiment an control group.
How I wish I could, sometimes, un-MBA my mind and see how different my life could be.

so… which mask is your MBA making you wear?

I am not against these self-introspective tests and this kind of MBA paradigm. I love it, infact. Attributing your behaviour to a theory proposed by a gentleman in some other era donning a wavy-white wig like a lady's can be the easiest to get away with your unfavourable idiosyncrasies.

But somewhere, I feel this education, where on one hand, exposes a world of worldly theories and enlightening self-concepts to us, on the other hand blinds us from the existence and operationally of a world which awaits us right outside our B-School boundaries.

So… Do we have the education to un-MBA our minds??

Backing it up...

Life becomes pretty devastating when you, hoping against all hopes to have your data secured, get to know that one wrong download cost you all your work till date and that you were naïve enough not to believe in inventions called “hard disks” then.

In short, I, permanently and irrevocably, lost all my data.

And by “data”, I mean the photographs that I took immense pains to first click, then transfer and compile neatly into albums. 

It still hurts. Thinking of all those faces in the pictures, suddenly I miss my “data” even more.

One good thing I did, though, was upload a select few on FB (FYI, for tagging a zillion faces, FB has barred me from any further tagging).

So this one day I was sulking over my devastated sans-pics life, staring at my cruel laptop’s heartless default desktop background. When I realized I could stand the background no more, I downloaded one of my uploaded pics on FB and set it as my wallpaper.

("THE" wallpaper)

Before I could breathe a sigh of relief seeing the beauty, a revelation occurred.

The faces in the pic seemed happier, including mine, than we actually were at that time, if I remember the moment correctly.

Doesn't it so happen, while you are in that moment, u do not realize how happy it is until it passes. After 6 months, when one fine day you sit defeated and helpless and suddenly set this pic as your laptop’s wallpaper, you say to yourself “You lucky girl! What more do you want from life? Aren’t you lucky enough that you are one of the faces in this happy pic?”

I, once more, understood the importance of these three people in my life.

This one pic is enough for me to forget lamenting over the rest 100000000 lost.

I love you guys more than you can ever come to think.

Once a mother, always a teacher.

Things change. In almost 20 years, things definitely change.

My mother has taught me, one way or the other, throughout my educational life. While in school, she helped me develop interest in mathematics (the subject I still love) and accountancy (without any success).

She would sit both of us, I and my little brother, down and start our daily lessons. We used to be pretty little things then; timid and meek in front of our “seldom-strict-mummy”.

Its been 19 years now that she taught me my first math counting, first English alphabet and hindi alphabet in varna-mala.

As I sit in my room trying to make sense of an HBR article on “Talent Management” now, while inadvertently ending up listening to whats going on in the living room outside, I cant be more nostalgic.

Now instead of us 2, she has 5 kids to teach. Kids as small as a 4-year-old to a 14-year-old.

Our domestic helps must be happy souls now, seeing their children tutored.

And unlike the rich brats (a true generalisation), they are very eager to learn.

Only a deprived knows the feeling of getting.

(My mother with the kids... unawares)

I hear my mother, I hear the same voice I can now recognize from any corner instructing- Shruti, aaj maths aur hindi karna hai. Rahul, Eleven aur seven ki spelling yaad karke sunao. Shivani, ye ghar se karke lana hai.

Listening it over the phone is a different thing than seeing it with my own eyes. Still, when she told me, a month back that she’ll be teaching our helps’ kids, I was inspired.

I reflect back and realize that one thing she has accomplished in her entire life till now is being a Superlative. My mother is a Super-Mummy.

So… things don’t really change in 19 years, do they??

The first 13th.

It so happened when I was at my doc's for the usual refill of my never-ending dosages, while i was home for winter break.
When after consulting with the doc and on being assured that everything was as it had been the last time I saw him- for good or otherwise- I headed to the hospital's apothecary to mix me the medicine as the prescription said.

As the guileless guy on the other side of the counter took my prescription- which has now developed into a mini-diary of sorts- humbly nodding at the seemingly illegible words, as if those words could talk to him, he read out my name like a teacher who wouldn't probably even raise his head on making-out who did a proxy, and turned and opened an almirah which more resembled the mysterious almirah from Narnia, and I saw in it a number of bottles; symmetrical in size and shape, some half-filled, others half-empty, dressed up in different undecipherable codes and what once would have been bright and fresh colored chits.

It was then that this thought cropped up in my mind. Like those small bottles had the huge capacity to be an elixir or poison, concocted accordingly; even the humans are same. We get along with the right mix, and t is an elixir. We meet the wrong ones, and we are doomed, only we never realize and usually cant tell good from bad, sticking to our decisions more adamantly as we progress on our life's graph.

So on this new year, i suddenly have a wish to make.
We must have done a zillion mistakes last year, we are only human. This new year, lets not repeat any of those. Lets make a zillion NEW mistakes.
Lets fall in love again, feel the thrill once more.

Lets be 16 again and this time.... forever.
Happy New Year to all my Loved ones...

Rhythm Divine

Writing a post from the hostel of an IIM was only a dream for me. I had got into an IIM precisely 5 months back but still writing a post could not happen. Largely because I had started believing that my mind and heart had stopped reading between the lines.

Now, blessed with a broken foot and a week-long-complete-bedrest, I have what seems like an entire lifetime to myself. And surprisingly, my judgment of myself was wrong. I can still read between the lines.

Our college is a good 25 mins away from our hostel. And that day, as always we were in a rush to make it to the college bus, only to see that the last bus to leave was more than full. So we got the college van instead. It was one of those rare days for me when I travelled in van, having missed all the buses. And I had hardly interacted with many of the people with whom I was commuting.

As we started, first thing was to turn the music on. “Beete lamhe…” was the song that played. Expecting some local songs, we were happily surprised to find regular “our” songs playing and what ensued was a magical trance. Many of us sang along, while some chose to hum and the rest stared out the window.

It was then that I realized something. All of us came from different parts of the country, and so belonged to different cultures, had different childhood (and some adult too) experiences, motivations and yet aspired to achieve a common goal.

The music, on the outside, was the same to everyone. But to each one of us, it meant an entirely different world. However, the underlying emotion was same- love, belonging, passion.

I assumed, knowing whatever little I knew of them, that while one of them thought of their CAT scores and getting a better college, another one might probably be thinking of her ailing pet back home and how she won’t be able to see it anymore. While one thought of a handsome summer placement and the life ahead of him, another one relived the song thinking of his love.

And what was I thinking? I was only too mesmerized and occupied with this thought to think of anything else.

It is amazing how one simple thing as music means so differently to different people. And because of this, it stops being simple.