Courage

There are many forms of courage. One of the forms is to smile despite knowing that there is nothing you can do to prevent what is going to happen to you or some one you love so much.

Almost every day you will have to go to bed crying and yet you have to wake up like nothing has happened and everything will be alright. You have to put up a show just to be happy and try to enjoy those last few days/weeks/months what ever left you with out thinking of the end.

It is very difficult. It takes tremendous amount of courage to get through such situation. You tied and pushed in a corner and punched and you can not scream but have to smile through each punch. And yet you want this to go on forever. No, you need this to go on forever. Because every new second you get feels like a blessing.

I sincerely wish that no one ever need to display this form of courage.

Money

Making money is easy. (1)

I learned this after running a business for 3 years. Not a highly successful business. Not a million-dollar business (, yet). But just by taking that risk.

Initially - perhaps like any one else (or may be not) entire focus was on from where next months expenses are coming. From where I am going to make money. Of many more such dirt cheap living situation before I can crash on a bed in a nice comfy apartment. How much more time before I will finally stop having nightmares about not able to make salaries or having to live on the street.

After 3 years I realized making money is absolutely easy. If I can even think about running a business, I sure can make money when ever I want.

Once you take biggest risk in life and are still on and about, then everything else starts looking pretty easy. Not easy - but not something you will be intimidated by. Not something which will give you nightmares at least.

And after I realized that money is the easier part, I decided to take that final step. Not thinking actively about making money at all.

Life seems full of much more opportunities than before.

(1) - Not crores of rupees but enough to spend for a comfortable life-style with may be very few corners cut.

Neglect

The worst thing a person can do other person is neglect.

You can be angry with some one and express it. You can hate some one and express it. You can be disgusted with some one and yet express it.

But if you neglect some one, then the wounds run much deeper than any thing else. I am not sure why. (1)

You can shout at some one, say sorry and move on. You can even hit some one say sorry and move on (I dont recommend this though). But you cant just neglect some one, for a long time, and then still hope to build a relationship with them in future.

Neglect is basically questioning some one's mere existence and its impossible not to feel extremely insulted and depressed because of it.

Be careful with this powerful weapon, you might burn down bridges which you dont want to.

(1) - Very quick research shows me that know one has ever attempted to study neuro-behavioral pattern when exposed to neglect, or tried but I am not able to google the findings. And since neglect is not really expression of any emotion, it is perhaps difficult for brain to process it and hence it leaves a deeper mark on emotional processing of the individual. Animals are also observed to react to it. My personal, thoroughly un-scientific observation is - couples which often quarrel end up having better relationship than couples who use neglect to express then anger/frustration/disagreement (silent treatment etc).

Privileges

What we are is defined by how we use privileges given to us.

Whether in personal life or in professional. We are entrusted with privileges thinking that we will make good use of them and will not abuse them.

Entire social hierarchies and control mechanism have come into being because people started building tendencies to abuse such privileges.

Stop and think before you are doing so. Because you may soon find that these privileges are taken back from you. And not just you but even your peers.

You are not just affecting your own life but life of people touched by your existence.

Journey

Destinations are quiet places where we want to reach in the end.

Journey is what makes reaching there fun and enjoyable.

Journeys are where we make friendships and forge relationships.

Destination is just a carrot to keep us going, journey is what we really want.

Problem is we often realize that only when we reach the destination.

Perhaps we can start thinking less about destination and more about journey.

Good

Most times we have best things heart and yet we are often perceived to be bad.

As human race has evolved our minds are closing us into more and more paranoid thoughts. Because of this our mind has actually closed for things which are generally good.

Most of us dont like to pause and think about things which may seem bad but might actually be in our best interest. Might have been done in very casual sense with out meaning anything.

Because of this we have to focus more and more on being perceived good rather than on just being good. And being perceived good is far easier to fake and hence people can deceive you. Which will force more paranoid thoughts and more cheating.

World will be much better if all had a moment to think.

Eg - In India we have two major political parties - congress and BJP. congress is the one which has very successful faked in being perceived good where as BJP unfortunately a really good party has always been bad at that. Hopefully situation will change sooner than later.

Tangent - If you have seen a movie click by Adam Sandler then I have always related automation of mundane tasks to automation of emotion processing. We need to stop doing that.

Jealousy

Is your life based upon how others see you? How much bragging rights you have in group of people? Are you always tormented by inferiority complex about little things? Then you can never succeed in life.

Problem with jealousy is - it will always force you to be with people who are inferior to you. Who are perhaps not as gifted as you are or not as ambitious as you are.

Have you ever thought of planning your life in a way where you will have those bragging rights 10 years down the line in your peer group rather than in your friend circle?

Your mentor generally awakens you to see beyond immediate success and failure. That is the most important job of a mentor. Mentor will train you to detach from immediate short term satisfaction to long term persistent euphoria.

Do you have such mentor? No. You should start searching for one.

Example from Mahabharat - Karna's continuous jealousy towards Arjun was his down fall. Because of the jealousy and because of his longing for short term satisfaction he decided to challenge him for a dual during the graduation day contest and one thing lead to another and he found himself in eternal debt of the wrong man.

Do not let this happen to you!

Woman who almost became THE one

I used to write a blog about people who have became special for me. People who are part of me and will always remain to be so. On this day of World Women's Day, this post is dedicated to the one girl who really made me happy, while it lasted. You know I am talking about you.

Dear Princess,

A strange mistake is often termed as destiny. In our case it was almost destiny. You shared her name and that lead to so many things. That one mistake is probably the only mistake in my life which I will perhaps make infinite number of times given a chance. Unfortunately life is not simple and I wont get that chance now, ever.

Chatting with you almost 24 by 7, on chat, on email on phone. Waking up at 7am in the morning, after having just said good night at 6am never felt so good and perhaps will never feel so good again. Songs that we sang for each other and the dreams that we created for each other will always be cherished and that I know.

Where ever you are now, stay the way you are. You are too good to be true and perhaps that is the reason, we are not together. I never believed it is for real. Retrospecting, I should have believed it. I should have submitted to it. But alas, when its not meant to be its not meant to be.

My princess, rani, babes and darling - I will always love you.

Comment on current political wars in Maharashtra

India became a country about 63 years ago. Before that there was no existence of the country. We embraced a democratic and unified government with a build up to it from 1930, post The non-co-operation movement lead by Mahatma Gandhi. Actual realization of it happened in 1947, post a very troubling world war - II. Perhaps not much for India, but for most of the western of world as we see it.

Now how all of these things affect or are related to current Marathi asmita related problems. Please note - I am not trying to blame any one, neither I am trying to provide a escapist view that if these things happen, let them happen, lets all move on from one crisis to other.

Few notes -
1. India as a country is very young. Only reason we became a country is we all had a common enemy in British.
2. India is a very big country. Population of India is more than a billion and thats a lot of people.
3. We have many different cultures and languages with in the this country. But most of these cultures where never part of a unified government before British rule. And even under British rule, all parts of India did not have exactly same rules. Also some parts of India, even during british rule were governed by Kings, even if amount of power these kings had was nominal. Some of the areas were ruled by other outsiders like Portuguese, French or African Siddi's.
4. Many of these cultures have had a violent past with each other, based on political aspects. For example Suja's of Bengal and Peshwas of Pune clashed. Nizam's , Adilshashi, Chikkmangalaur's King, Chhatrapati Shivaji, Bundels, Gorakhas all fought with each other at some point or the other.
5. The north and south, typically above Narmada and below Tapi respectively, are 2 regions which were never part of same government. North saw dynasties of Vikramaditya, Shrung, Maurya, Mughals. Where as south saw dynasties of Satvahanas, Vijaynagar, Peshwas, Nizams etc.
6. If British rule was not there, India as a country would probably have never existed. We have had democracy, but in sub-parts.

So essentially, even though we are taught in school that we a country of different cultures and values, what we arent told is we as a nation, as country are recent concepts.

How this is different from other countries - neither country on this planet has such history. For example United Kingdom of Great Britain is still a sovereign state of four countries. Even though these four countries are bound by same governance, they still have their individual identity intact like 4 different cricket teams or Soccer teams etc.

So even though we can all debate about being a nation and one rule for all, we need to also understand that perhaps having one single rule and one single identity for such a big and diversified nation is perhaps not a good idea. I still love you all Indians and I know you all love me too. But it is my natural instinct and perhaps a right to protect my people. And when its comes to defining my people physical closeness is more important than governing closeness. I will care about the stranger living in my colony more than I can care about stranger living in some distant part of India.

Disclaimer - Idea behind this post is not to support any kind of violence or any kind of division based politics. But if we as a nation, as one single country cant solve Kaveri water issue in 40 years, perhaps we dont deserve to be one single nation.

Update: The questions that I am asking in this post are not for any individual, group, but for myself and perhaps my readers. I have been stuck with this questions since I learned about Riots against Sikhs and after I did a study about various regional debates happened in last 6 decades ie post independence.