A joke called Mumbai local train

Millions (and by millions I mean more than 7 million) of people use the Mumbai local trains to commute every day. Statistically, trains in Mumbai carry a whopping 265% of its capacity during peak hours and this results in what is known as Super Dense Crush Load of 14-16 passengers per square meter of the trains' floor space! If this statistic doesn’t sound whacky enough check this one out - more than 10 people die in train accidents every single day(don’t trust me? check WikiPedia). 10 fatalities per day is not just a statistic but a brutal reality that a common man has to go through while travelling in Mumbai local trains each day. And these mishaps have become such commonplace that the people travelling everyday consider it a rule of thumb - this is how it is and if you have to survive in Mumbai, you have to go through this! Everyone feels it should not be the way it is, but no one knows what can be done to avoid the same. People who travel can't do much, and the people who can (politicians/ bureaucrats/ policy makers) don't feel the pinch because they don't use these transport mediums. 

People in Mumbai are called true-spirited citizens because they move on with an accident or an incident with great comfort and they (apparently) don't get bogged down by such harsh realities. But the truth is people in Mumbai do not have an option! It's more of a compulsion than a choice. People choose to commute in the trains because local trains are the cheapest, fastest and most connected transport system in Mumbai. Eric Hoffer once said – “Every new adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem”. Imagine the self-esteem of millions of people who have to “adjust” every single day of their life to travel through these Mumbai local trains. If only they had a choice!

Check out these videos i found on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=1eAP-BoxVkg&feature=endscreen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL93N6dfXLk

The true Indian culture

It's such a beautiful world. You give something only to get something more. You spread the warmth and it comes back to you in innumerable ways. More so from the people from the countryside. 

They are so humble, helpful, thankful, innocent and caring that they fail to be anywhere close to diplomacy. They give others selflessly and expect nothing at all in return. This of course, is a generalization of the majority of the people from such regions and excluding a rather savage people. The humanity in the urban locales is reducing as fast as the trees in these areas. On a lighter note - I feel the warmth of the people is directly proportional to the trees that survive in their area; although, no offense to people belonging to desert areas!

If you wish to see the real India, i would suggest you go to the interior rural areas. That's the true INDIAN culture. The culture that can now be seen in the urban counterparts is as fake as the makeup that the women in these regions are laden with. The hospitality that you'll find in any house in the rural areas is incomparable to any top tier hotel anywhere in the country. The basic difference lies in sharing your already minimal resources. Let me paint a brief picture - 4 people sit cramped up on the train seat meant for only 3(sometimes just 2) people. We, the urban people, call it insanity and stupidity or even tackiness, but they call it sharing. And the reason for the sharing is that each one of them cannot afford the seat for more reasons than one.

We usually call people before visiting (or what we call it as crashing into) their homes, but if you go to countryside, everyone's door is wide open. They welcome visitors who come uninformed and treat them well. And I think that's the true Indian culture and not the one that we try to imitate looking at westerners.

Luxury means different to different people. For some it is buying expensive toys which their kids hardly play with or buying expensive fancy foodstuff that their kids or themselves end up wasting more often. But for many in India luxury means buying a Rs. 5 vadapav for their kid or buying fancy, attractive and dirt cheap stuff in the train. 

It's about time we start preserving the true Indian culture, which is on the verge of extinction much like the 1400 and odd Indian tigers. The tigers' extinction can be debated as a natural step in ecological evolution but the extinction of our culture is a mere reflection of our naive attraction towards the relatively younger cultures. Instead of being proud of our achievements and our traditions and spreading them across the world, we are pacing towards being western (or as we call it - being "global").

Credibility - need of the hour!

In today's world, we think money is the ultimate superpower. But there is something else that each one of us unknowingly strives for continually - Credibility. We all think we want a good education, a good job in a good company or a good profit earning methodology to earn more money. But it's not really the monetary benefit that we are (or should be) hunting for, it’s the ultimate satisfaction of being believable. It's the feeling that our words and thoughts matter to other people. It's the trust our fellow citizens have in us that will get us the position and fame that we wish for, not just the money. Money can be earned in various ways, but if you are a person that someone can have a faith in, then the money will come and eventually will stay with you longer.

Credibility is, by all means, a mutual give and take of intangible assets. It's like the barter system in the olden days - you give some, you get some.

This phenomenon has numerous examples from all walks of life - 

• The intake of the major business schools around the world each year. These schools want to take individuals who can add value to these institutions and these students wish to join the top business schools to add a feather in their resume. The schools become famous because of its (ex)students and hence, more successful students want to join such schools.
• Your colleagues, your friends or your companions you choose for yourself. If eminent people know you well, you are deemed more valuable and trustworthy. Consequently, the people you know are considered reliable. 
• In business circle, if one of your friends is a successful businessman, your credibility points increase automatically.
• Globally, if a major developed nation supports your country, the trustworthiness of your country manifolds.
• In case of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), if an authentic website links back to your site, you earn brownie points. And hence the back and forward links prove to be major factors in deciding your online footprint.
• And so on…

It's this give and take of credibility that the renowned people work with. The more credible value you add to an organization or a relationship with another person, the more (in)credible you yourself become. That's how it works! 

As it's said - "A person is known by the company he/she keeps..."

India's growing population - asset/liability?

A year ago, i had the privilege of reading a book titled 'Imagining India'. I am not a voracious reader, and if i count the books i have read until now, perhaps the number might be lesser than my fingers (excluding those of my legs). But after reading the book i was sure of one thing - those were the best ~80 hours spent until now. Yes, i did take ~80 hours to read it, don't judge me on my speed; I told you I'm a rookie. 

The book was a breath of fresh air amidst all the criticism and pessimism that we are surrounded by in our country today. Most of us had(and still have) this notion that the root cause of all the problems in our country is our ever growing population. True that, but it's also true that it will be one of the mysterious weapons that will help us fulfill our dream of becoming the world super-power. If right now you're thinking I'm just a foolish optimist and if you don't trust me, grab hold of the book - Imagining India by Nandan Nilekani. I gladly endorse this book and if you're skeptical of our country's growth, it's a must read.

This book motivated me to go onto Google and search for current as well as future unemployment- and population-related statistics of India. To my astonishment, Nandan was right, and our government has realized the same potential in our youth, too. Let me jot down a handful of statistics that amazed me : (Click on Read More to read more...)

Life in Mumbai - Survival of the (Un)Fittest!

Firstly, most of us think the term 'Survival of the Fittest' is coined by Charles Darwin who authored the Theory of Evolution, but in reality it was Herbert Spencer, a British philosopher, who has coined this term.

I have been born and brought up in this blissful city (or that is what we want to flaunt it as) called Mumbai. The word Mumbai is derived from the words Mumba + Aai, which means mother Mumba (Koli goddess) in Marathi.

Mumbai has been the financial and entertainment capital of India since a long time and today contributes approximately 5% to the GDP of the country. It houses various important institutions such as Reserve Bank of India, Bombay Stock Exchange, and National Stock Exchange and is the hometown of the most famous institution in India - the Bollywood.

Now you must be wondering why am i giving you such information that you can also find on more authentic websites such as the Wikipedia and the like. The intention is not to provide information, but to show what people around the world perceive the city as. A person who stays in the city for a long time will know what the real shape of the city is.

I will try to describe a day in the life of an average middle-class person who stays in the city and wants to lead a decent livelihood. This description is not representative of the masses in the city as more than 60% of the people stay in slums. There are also around 8-10% of the people who lead a much prosperous life in the same city. This is an example of a day in the life of a person who is familiar to all the voices of the city. Also, i will refer to the below example as a person (she) but it doesn't necessarily mean it's an example of a woman's life because that's not the basic motive behind the exemplification; please don't read much into it.

The person wakes up at 6 in the morning in her not more than 500-600 square feet house. She drinks milk (tea/coffee) that is not according to the health standards followed in the rest of the world, but she doesn't care. Most of the houses do not have a 24x7 supply of water, so most of the people (as well as this person) bathe with the water stored in small containers. She gets ready and leaves home in a hurry (people in Mumbai are always in a hurry). She waits for an auto-rickshaw but none of the unengaged rickshaw drivers want to take her to her destination. With no choice left, she then waits for a public transport bus in a never-ending queue and after much effort gets into an overcrowded bus. The bus either takes her to her office or to the nearest railway station. During her journey, the bus is stuck numerous times in unimaginable traffic (you should see the traffic to know it). She then gets down from the bus and runs (literally) to board a public transport train. 

 The trains in Mumbai are so crowded that a cockroach might change its travel timings to avoid the rush. She gets into an overly crowded (which is an understatement actually) train and reaches her desired station soon. The trains in Mumbai carry more than 300-350 people in a single compartment, whose seating capacity will not be more than 60-70 persons (no kidding!). This happens although the difference between 2 trains at peak hours is not more than 2-3 minutes (on the clock). Conversations among people in Mumbai about the train often sound like - "Tomorrow I have to catch the 8.43 am Churchgate(a station) local." or "if i don't catch the 9.57 am CST(another station) i will miss my 10.28 am Borivali local."  

When she gets off the train, she smells like a pig who is back from its wonderful time at the nearby muck. No perfume or deodorant can sustain the test of Mumbai local trains (perhaps that's one marketing strategy that a perfume company can never use). If her office is near the railway station, life is heaven for her. If not, she has to repeat the auto-rickshaw and the bus cycle. She reaches her office in that messed up state at, let's say, 9.30 am. Let's not get into what happens at her office, because that is well-known to people across locations. During lunch she goes to her office canteen that serves abysmal routine food.

If she carries her own lunch and thinks she is eating healthy food, then she is living in a state of enigma. Because the food in our country does not pass any quality check before reaching the common people and much has been said and known about the quality of the food, i don't want to get into that.

She leaves her office to repeat the same commute cycle in the evening, just that now she is tired of working more than 9 hours in her office and is in a cranky mood (most of the people in Mumbai go through this cranky demeanor every day). She gets irritated with people pushing her around in the trains and buses and with small things that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. She transfers this frustration onto other people and the crankiness is highly contagious. The streets are now full of hawkers who want to sell all kinds of things from vegetables to cutlery, from toys to books, from street-side junk food to mobile phone accessories and list goes on and on. They yell at the top of their voice to publicize their products because that is the only mode of marketing they know of. Amidst all this craziness she reaches home and her spouse is equally frustrated of his day. Her kids are complaining, and so are her parents, her neighbors, her friends and even her dog. She eats her dinner watching the television, which shows her a parallel world that is filled with things that she wishes to have in her life. She complains about her pathetic life and blames everyone around her for the same. She waits and dreams for tomorrow when her life will take a 180 degree turn and she'll live her life happily ever after. But tomorrow never comes. The next morning she wakes up at 6, and the rest - you can guess it.

This cycle repeats every day in the life of more than 10 million people residing in this blissful city and they (whoever they are) call it the dream city. Wow, what a dream to have! I have mentioned a day in the life of an "average" person, so you can imagine the ones living below poverty line. Thus, I feel the fittest of the people live in this city and the ones, not-so-fit, are just surviving.

SQL - the database champion

SQL - stands for Structured Query Language, is a programming language to handle DataBase Management Systems (DBMS). The above sentence might ring a bell in many of the geeky minds, but may not be perceived in the same way by a non-geek. Let me handle this definition in a more simplistic manner.

Let’s imagine a small 10-page book with minimal words and a few pictures (more like a comic book most of us read in our childhood). If we are given a task to find a particular unique word within those 10 pages, it might take us not more than 10 minutes (much lesser if it’s an interesting comic book that we have read repeatedly). Now let’s increase the difficulty level a bit. If we are given a 100-page book and asked to again find a specific unique word within those 100 pages, it might take us a couple of hours (if the book is one of our academic books, then it might take a few days as well). And finally, if we are given access to a library that contains more than a 100 books and we are now asked to find a single unique word among them - that can be a month-long arduous assignment. This is where database management technology comes into the picture.

To be Silent or not to be...

It's often said that Silence is a virtue of Fools. But is it really? I have pondered over it a few times and have realized that being silent is actually the virtue of the most intelligent and rational people. To know when to speak up and when not to takes a lot of intellectual understanding of the situation one is into.
As children, we often answer all the questions that we are asked rather innocently thus blabbing out the truth. Since childhood, we're always taught that we should not lie to people, but nobody stops us from being silent. Being silent is not equivalent to lying. But one learns when to keep mum only with experience.


The best example when to keep silent is when one is an argument. More often than not, we regret what we say in an argument, because we are angry and we do not have control over our thoughts. We often hurt our close ones by saying things we don't usually mean. There are times when we speak thoughtlessly in our professional life and occasionally pay the price for doing so. Silence comes in as a very handy tool in such situations. Silence has the power to solve the most complicated issues, as it helps you gain control over your mind and think rationally.
Silence doesn't always mean not talking to others. It even means to calm your own psyche and ponder over your own thoughts. Metaphorically, it means to turn the vigorous sea of thoughts in your mind into a state of a composed lake.


Having said that, being silent is sometimes perceived as a sign of shyness or cowardice. Thus, one needs to maintain an equipoise in one's actions and her expressions. People who manage to achieve this equilibrium emerge as great leaders, as they can maintain their authority as well as be mindful of not revealing more than what they should.


Essentially, silence helps us contemplate over our past actions, gather our current thoughts and contrive what our future actions will be. Don't you think?

Viswanathan Anand - the profound genius!

I am inspired to write this blog post today because yesterday this genius - Viswanathan Anand, has defended his World Chess title for the fifth time (and fourth time in a row) since 2007! That's miles ahead of being spectacular. It's what Neil from 'How I Met Your Mother' would call it - Legen....dary!! And yet he's not as renowned in our country as he deserves to be. 

As we all know, Google searches are location/country specific and the results vary across regions. I stumbled upon this array of astonishing facts when I went to Google search on my computer. I punched in the following letters for eminent people in our country and this is what i found :

Click to Enlarge

I was exhilarated with Viswanathan’s achievement yesterday, and hence I punched his name first and pressed enter. I was shocked to look at the result. The first post from Places in India (highlighted below) is from a news channel - NDTV, and it's headline says, "Who is Viswanathan Anand"(highlighted above). That is one of the leading news channels in the country and their headline just depicts how ignorant we are about the greatest sportsperson our country possesses today (with all due respect to Sachin Tendulkar). He has carried the torch of India single handedly in the World Chess arena and has not let the fire perish until today.

Then I thought to myself, let’s give others a try; so I typed in just 3 letters to search for Sachin Tendulkar - the Demi-God of Indian as well as World cricket. And I need not enlist here the pages that I saw on the Google search page, because he needs no introduction in India.

Trust me, it gets better...

This time i had to punch in just 2 letter to search for Kareena Kapoor - an actress in Bollywood again, who belongs to a star-studded family and who is surprisingly famous even though she can get an Oscar for being unfit to act. But regardless of her acting skills she is well known to people residing in the remotest of the villages in our country.

So why don’t we know the guy who earned India such great respect globally in his sport and has been consistently doing it for so many years? Why don’t we know the guy who became India’s first grandmaster in 1987, 24 years ago? Why are we not aware of the person who was the first recipient of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 1991–92, India's highest sporting honour? If we worship cricket and its demi-gods, why do we not worship the guy who was awarded India's second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, making him the first sportsperson to receive the award in Indian history?

I think he deserves every bit of our attention and every bit of glamour that our cricketers get for contributing far much lesser than him. I think it’s high time we divert our attention to other sportspersons in our country who have given a lot more to our country than fame, such as Viswanathan himself, Saina Nehwal, Vijender Singh, Mary Kom, etc., don’t you think? And I am sure there are many more unnoticed people who have devoted their life to earn respect for our country. I’ll try to write about as many of them as possible in the future - just a small way of acknowledging their achievements!

Friends are Relatives you make for yourself

Friends are people in our life who are connected to us not by blood, but by soul. God doesn’t really give us a choice in the blood relations we have (mother, father, and the rest of the family), but we do have all the liberty of making friends and choosing them for ourselves. We get closer to them with complete cognizance and, in most cases, have a choice in the friends we want to hold on to. It’s also a popular belief that you’re judged by the friends you possess.

Everyone has friends, who are acquaintances, supporters, admirers and so on. But all of us have a few(or may be one) who are the closest to us. We call them our best friends and we preserve them as a witness to our life. We share secrets with them, love to hang out with them, enjoy their company. These are people who make our life worth living. Unfortunately, for many of us, our best friends keep changing over the course of time. We find new friends, we move on. But even though the person changes, the feeling in our heart for that one/few friends remains the same.

All animals, including humans, share a deep bond with their friends. All of us have memories with our friends, and these memories make our life worth living. It’s one gift that god leaves upon us to choose for ourselves.

Even I have a best friend, and I felt I must write a post to let her know how lucky I am to have her. Not every day we find people in our lives whom we wish to hold on to for long. Things might change in the future, situations might change, but she is someone who I’ll always remember as the one who helped me be who I am today. Our friends do influence our lives in magical ways, without us realizing. And the memories we share with these friends are something that defines us. I dedicate this blog post to you, and I earnestly wish we go on being the best buds forever. 

I know everyone who reads this post also has a person(s) in his/her mind right now. I would request you to go to that person(s) and tell him/her what he/she means to you. It’ll just strengthen your friendship - the best gift god gives us after our family!

It's now time to make a change...

By change, i mean a change in our society, in our country, and most importantly in our thoughts! We are all proud of being Indians, but if we're asked to write down 10 good things happening in our country and 20 bad things, i think the latter would be much easier for most of us. It's not that our country or the people are all that bad; it’s just that we listen and see only what we want to. We blame our politicians who are inept of uplifting our country, we blame the media for being largely biased and for practicing lobbyism, we blame our policemen for being lethargic and corrupt, we blame everyone around but us. This attitude needs to change.

Change does not happen in a blink, or not even in a fortnight, it's gradual. We need to change our way of thinking. What our country and we as individuals need today is to get a perspective. We need to be open to change and be more optimistic. I agree our politicians are not performing at their best, but there are many other people who devote their lives to causes that no-one even cares to bother about. We should bring such people to limelight and speak positively about them, instead of cribbing about the inefficiencies of our politicians and their pack of people. It's the negativity in our minds and hearts that's being vented out, and that's the obstacle on our path of development.

We blame the people outside our country to be more interested in our poor people than in our achievements, but are we ourselves aware of our current achievements? Do we even know about the thousands of people working in remote areas for the welfare of other fellow underprivileged citizens, away from the paparazzi? I believe, we should emphasize more on the noble deeds of such devoted people than on the actus reus of our government/media. We should recognize the exemplary deeds of today's heroes and spread their positivity.

Watch your thoughts for they become words. 

Watch your words for they become actions. 

Watch your actions for they become... habits. 

Watch your habits, for they become your character. 

And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny! 

What we think we become. 

-- Quote from the movie - 'The Iron Lady'(Margaret Thatcher)

If we think positive, we can change our destiny. It's what we think and what we believe that defines us. Great revolutions are caused by people who have the optimism to bring about a change. It's a positive thought that has the power to revolutionize, not a negative one. If we want to see our country and our people shine, we need to shed our pessimism and embrace optimism. As Aristotle said - "Hope is the dream of a waking man"! Hope is all we've got.

To control the outcome...

We often believe that life is what happens to us when we are busy planning our moves in life. We think we cannot control what happens to us in our lives. Many of us believe in Destiny and Luck. To be honest, even i do, but that is no excuse to not work your way through for what you want. I cringe when people say - "I had no other option left, i had to do it."

I strongly believe, there is always an option that one has not thought of earlier. There does not exist a problem in this world that does not have a solution. It's just the incognizance of the solution that forces us to believe that the problem is insolvable. Every door has a key; every business can be turned around; every question has an answer; every thought has a reason. It just needs to be invented or discovered.

If Alexander Graham Bell had not invented the way to talk to other person over a phone, we might not be as technologically advanced as we are today. If Sir Issac Newton did not have the urge to find the reason behind the apple falling on the ground, we would perhaps be still unknown to one of the biggest discovery in physics - Earth's Gravitational force.

I am a staunch believer of the famous theory - if one door closes another one opens. I opine that if we are surrounded by problems and if we are being pushed around by our boss, our peers, or our life, all we need to do is Rebel. If we allow any of them to continue pushing us around, we will persistently feel helpless. Instead of pitying ourselves, we need to think different. We need to ask ourselves - what can i do to control the outcome myself? Einstein defined insanity as 'doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result'. Sometimes, all it takes is a change of perspective to find answers to the biggest questions.

At the end of the day, the outcome of any situation depends on how one looks at/reacts towards it. No matter what happens, it's on YOU to control the outcome; it always has been.

Sachin Tendulkar - prodigy personified!

In India, the sport of cricket runs in every Indian’s blood. In a nation where people follow more than a dozen religions and yet stay in harmony, there is one abstract religion that binds all of them together - Cricket. Though the game was first showcased to the world by the British, we Indians take pride in being its largest followers. Indian cricket team has produced many masters of the game, but there is one name that defines this sport in India; that name is Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar(SRT).

There are many cricket followers who believed that he would turn out to be a cricket prodigy even before he played cricket as a profession. In his school days he has broken records, made new records and he continues that trend till today at the age of 38. If a person tries compiling all the records he has made or broken till today, in a book, probably the book will run into pages equaling the entire Harry Potter collection. I am not his most ardent fan, perhaps I would not even be counted in the top 70% of his fans, but the respect I have for him is no lesser than any other Indian might have. And the reason is, if anybody truly deserves that respect as a sportsperson in India, it’s him.

Being from a middle class family, he always believed in his dreams and his perseverance got him where he is today. In the game of cricket, a batsman is judged by the centuries he/she makes. Harsha Bhogle once said - good batsmen make 10-12 centuries in their entire career, great batsmen score 20-30 centuries. Legends of the game make 40-50 centuries in their entire tenure as batsmen, but this “Little Master” (as he is renowned) has a whopping 100 centuries under his belt. A hundred hundreds! Any person having a decent knowledge of the game would be aware that he is an epitome of perfection in this game.

People who follow cricket as a religion in India consider him God. They truly believe it, without a speck of doubt. He is what Michael Jackson is for pop music or what Pele is for football. Bowlers all across the world feel privileged to have bowled to him and the ones who have taken his wicket in any international game consider it a feather in their cap. Even with such an extravagant track record, with fan following from every part of the world, and being the greatest pro the game has ever seen, he is as humble as a child. This virtue of humility and the urge to learn and enjoy the game even at the peak of his career is what led him to become the greatest maestro of this sport. I truly bow down to his dedication, his talent, his attitude towards the game, his incredible humility, and to himself. SRT, aap jaisa na koi tha, na koi hai, aur na hi koi hoga!(There wasn’t, isn’t and never will be any one like you!)

Are you lucky enough to be lucky?

Having a hard luck is one excuse that we all give when we fail to do something in life; whereas we just forget to appreciate our good luck when we succeed. Can luck really be good or bad? There have been numerous debates over the sheer existence of luck. I believe, there are two types of people when it comes to believing in luck - the ones who do, and the ones who don't.

Successful people deny its existence, as they believe you can create your own luck and guide your destiny. Whereas the not-so-fortunate say - luck is all what it takes to be successful. When a person wins a lottery or a jackpot at a casino in Las Vegas we say " She just got lucky!". But when another person wins the World Championship in boxing we say it's her talent that helped her win. Why does the boxer's luck not come in the focus then? Successful individuals are masters of seizing the opportunities but isn't it their luck that provides them these opportunities, to begin with?

Once Harsha Bhogle an adept Indian cricketer and an extraordinary cricket commentator described the difference between Talent Vs Attitude in his address to students of IIM-Ahmedabad. He spoke about an example which really amazed me - that of a footballer and her talent. He described a footballer who plays the role of a striker(a forward on a soccer team) in her team. She waits patiently for her co-players to pass the ball to her and has very little time to convert it into a goal(sometimes just a single kick has to do the magic!). She keeps adjusting her positions throughout the match so that she is present at the right place at the right time(I call it - @RP@RT). Now it's her talent that helps her to be in those positions and not her luck. Her luck does play a role, but not as significant as her talent.

We try to associate luck with various such synonyms as destiny or intuition or fate or chance. But luck is really none of these alone. It's probably the super-set of all of these. Luck is when you get a chance to follow your intuition and your destiny favors you. It's when you consciously leverage your skills to make yourself available @RP@RT. Nobody is bestowed with 100% luck. Likewise, nobody achieves success only with her talent. It's the combination of both that helps individuals succeed.

So what really is Luck? Can we rely on it? Can we be sure that luck will favor us if we work hard? Not always! But the key is - to not depend on luck and do what it takes to succeed, without bothering. There is a dramatic saying in Indian Bollywood films - "Agar aap kisi cheez ko sache dil se chaho to pooree kainat usko aap se milane ki koshish main lag jaati hai ", which means - If you genuinely want something from the bottom of your heart, the whole mankind buckles up to help you achieve it. We think it is true in case of the most successful people around us like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or the more recent one - Mark Zuckerberg. Was it their talent that helped them distinguish themselves or was it their luck? It's hard to tell. I would leave it upon you to decide for yourself because -

"You can't connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path "
 - Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Address, 2005

I love the way you Lie!

The most clichéd and well known proverb in English language is "Honesty is the best policy", yet none of the policies - neither corporate nor government, seem to embrace honesty. We expect governments of countries to be transparent or large Multi-National Corporations to be honest to us. We expect people surrounding us to be frank and open about their feelings. When we enter any organization we wish to read our bosses' minds or at least those of our colleagues so that we do not fall prey to organizational politics. We expect everyone to tell us the truth and not conceal their thoughts, thus making this world a better place.

But let me ask - how many of us are honest to even ourselves, keep aside the outside world? The answer would be a number far less than we wish to have. Then why are we so afraid to be honest? Why is it such a difficult affair to be honest? Why is honesty such an extinct virtue in today's world?

We come up with convincing excuses like - "it’s a highly competitive world", "why be honest when no-one surrounding us is", "being honest is passé and being street smart is the in-thing", or the most dishonest line - "who said I am not honest? I really am, swear to god!". But who are we kidding! If all of us were even truthful to ourselves half the problems we face in today's world wouldn't have existed. We are so afraid to be honest that we choose to live in a bubble: a bubble that becomes our comfort-zone, and within that zone, we lie to everyone around us(including ourselves) to appear happy and successful. Kids lie to their parents and parents are the ones who teach kids to do that in the first place. Employers lie to employees and vice versa, and being dishonest has become such a commonplace. 

If only we can all take the initiative to just be honest ourselves and not expect others to be. We might face problems and the urge of being otherwise would be too tempting, but if we overcome that phase and imbibe truthfulness in us and make it a way of life, imagine the impact! Social revolutions do not upsurge by massive preaching but by singular efforts of individuals who truly believe they can create an impact. Honesty defines the character not of the weak, but of the strong. Who we really are, is what we should preserve and should portray, not a wanna-be perfect person, don't you think?

Blog numero uno

As i start writing my first blog, it's quite a mixed feeling.. A feeling of Excitement - because it's my first attempt at opening up to the world in the true sense(unlike twitter, where you have to restrict your sentences to 140 characters..i mean, how can anybody express their true emotions with a character limit!!) mixed with a flavor of joy of sharing knowledge and a tinge of fright - because it's quite intimidating to actually put your thoughts in ink and surface it to anyone on the World Wide Web(the www). Though some people blog with relative ease, i feel a sense of responsibility i owe to myself for sharing my thoughts, which i hope are unbiased,pure and true to myself. 


Having said that, it's quite amazing that we are experiencing a time, in which a simple guy like me can sit in Mumbai and punch in words, and someone remotely far can read them without having to know anything else about me except these three set of characters - ekmind.blogspot.in. This level of interfacing was unimaginable a few decades ago, but to the people belonging to the current Internet age it's a way of living. It's so easy for strangers to talk to anyone around these days and make friends, we feel, but this whole experience of talking to people over the internet is taking our lives to a superficial level. Today people wish their friends on their birthdays and anniversaries over Facebook and send cards via eGreetings, but how can an electronic message or a virtual card ever replace a hug or a shake hand? The personal touch to relationships is losing and we have nobody else to hold responsible but ourselves. We think we are making it easy for strangers to talk and make friends using the internet but what we are really doing is distancing ourselves from the already close ones using the same medium. Facebook, we say, has changed the way of socializing for good, but has it really? Earlier the friends who used to personally meet on weekends to catch up on the latest gossip, now sit online and chat to 10 more friends on the internet, but the essence of communicating with another person is missing. In this innovative age I wish we reach a stage, in which instead of our messages reaching another person we could personally transport in time/space(more like a 'time machine') and reach the desired place as quickly as our messages reach today. I earnestly hope that we will have something similar in the future and all these social networking sites are a stepping stone towards it. If it does come true humans would have crossed the biggest barrier known to them - time, but if it doesn't, we would really be living in a hypothetical world losing the most natural thing about us - physical interaction with another human.