The one who never goes away...

I never knew that my friend Mr. E had never left me. I kept taking decision while walking on the road for a long long time. I took many turns which I never intended and missed some which I was wanting badly. All the while I kept thinking that I am going away from E. I bragged about myself whenever I was confused about few decisions. I consoled myself many a times thinking that we are doing something which no one has ever done or it is really difficult to achieve.
I was walking towards a Mountain. The road was pleasant and full of beautiful trees, unknown but very friendly people. The mountain was very very high but it always seemed achievable target. You could see sun rising every morning and taking birds to their nests every evening. Shadows used to play game of hide & seek even with the mountain. One day you could see whole mountain covered by shadows of sky and the other day you could see mountain dancing in the rain and painting the sky with unimaginable colors. The mountain was a teacher in the journey and even after that.
Generally they say who fear height, should not look down or back while climbing the mountain. Also there is tale of Vikramditya & Vetal, this Vetal is none other than Mr. E. He asked me the most difficult question, but I thought it was very simple. He asked me, "Who wants to climb the mountain?". I thought its a simple question. I did not realize so many times after missing the turns I was still shown the road to mountain. It wasn't me, it is never us. Even when we walk we feel, I am taking so many efforts. The simple answer "I" made Vetal laugh.... and he laughed liked he always does.
He said, "Ohhhh so you decided to come to Mountain. Oh my dear friend, just look back and see what have you left." Since there was "I" there was obvious reference to "You". And I looked back... and I got scared... big time... As always it is always easy to run from the point where you start than towards the end point :-) And  ran fast, closing all my senses I ran fast... thinking that it was "I"... and when I hit the bottom, I realized... there stood my friend Mr. E... and I thought it was me...
Once again... the lesson was given and mountain disappeared :-)
Sometime I see that mountain... with many more disciples.... I know I have to first let go this "I"... I think that was the important lesson I was missing all the while... :-)    

Racing thoughts...

Its been 1 month since I have came back to routine life from my Vistarakship in India…

I came to a point, where I was exactly 12 years back… not knowing where am I? searching for a job… looking for something which will give me sense of existence. Only difference this time was, I had 10 years of working experience in IT field, 2 years of full-time vistarakship and rare attitude of repeating mistakes ;-) Situation is not worse on the face value but more pathetic with this type of past… still I am looking for answers, I am still doing soul-searching…

trying to find the answer which Angulimal couldn't answer… 

I can not answer many questions which might be obvious… sometimes I feel like telling the person who asks question, "is it really going to help by knowing why I did what I did?"… by answering such questions, is it going to help me in any way… but they are not wrong. When society praises you, you like that… when people talk good about you, you want to hear it from many people… similarly society, people have all the rights to question you, criticize you and you should have appetite to digest that as well. 

I think this point is the "Buddha" point, wherein you are neither happy nor angry by external factors.

So here I am trying to hide from people, wanting not to take any calls, feeling lost, going in past, trying to join the broken pieces which I only broke.

Your choices - your choices decide your destiny… there are so many interesting stories of business people, film stars, writers and what not who had never thought about their future in the way it shaped up, but the choices they made in their life journey had changed their life completely. At the same time there are so many stories around us… so many people we can interact and get to know that what if they had done that… "वो हो ना सका"… greatness which could not be achieved… happiness which could not be given…

So why things happened the way it happened…? Now you can always flip this question in either way. I can not appreciate more - the sentence from Chanakya serial - "मन का क्या है राजन, वो तो अपने समाधान के  लिये कोई  ना कोई सन्मानजनक तर्क ढूंढ़ ही लेता है।"

What if…? Why did you let the "If" come in the picture? Don't you find this question sometime coming to your mind as well? If not, then you really have a clear cut thought process chalked out for yourself… and I really envy that ;-)

Tears… do they matter? I mean if someone kills somebody and then shed hell lot of tears, is it going to matter? Regrets… why did we behave in some way which we have to regret for? Secrets… why do I need to hide something? Respect… why do I long for "getting" ( चाहियेवाला मन ) more and more respect… don't you respect yourself? Satisfaction… whom am I trying to satisfy - myself or people? Happiness… is it external?

Why there should be connect between different paragraphs… why should there be uniformity in what we express… why should it make sense… what is it that keep me on toes… what… why… when….???

My favorite set of Mango people in last 2 years...

I spoke to Rashi about where is she working now? She told that they are working in Setlabs kind of environment where they are involved in creating applications which run on Mobile devices. I was like wow, sounds interesting. I had been on bench for 1 week and there was no sign of getting new project. Just few days back I had emailed my DM thanking him for giving me golden opportunity of going on a unpaid leave for 1 year. That one year....
I wish I had more guts and will-power to continue. I haven't accepted it till now, which I am saying now that somewhere in back of mind I was a very very weak... I left that life changing, thought provoking journey of "Vistarakship". People whom I met... people whose "unconditional love" is just beyond words and comparison. That journey, that path changed so many concepts, thoughts in my mind. The way I looked at things was totally changed. It gave me broader perspective...
... and here I was back to Infosys after exact 1 year. I was alone with some known friends like Santosh, Chandana with whom I could go for lunch, breakfasts.
I went to meet Prashant and he told me that there is work in Symbian C++, will I be able to do it? I still remember the thoughts which were going in my mind, its been 1 year I am totally out of touch. C++ and on top of that Symbian C++. How??? But I always had intensity to work in full Development project. I had fought so many times with situation and myself about my testing project CCTPN. I will say cribbed... I didn't fight otherwise I would have left Infy by then and really got into some core development company. But "wo ho na saka...." :)
I said Yes... I would like to join. While leaving from SDB4, I was telling myself, bhaisaab jitni ghisani hai utni ghislo. I had heard about Symbian being favorite in embedded or something so was kind of very happy. While taking my lunch in FC2, I got a call from Aslam saying that your transfer has been initiated. I was super excited. I think it was 14th August, I met Niti and Altaf, they gave me one PM's cabin because some firang was leaving from that desk and it was available. I think Niti introduced me to Altaf and Vinay and Vinay emailed Imran to add me to DL for Symbian_C_Plus_Plus :) I am just realizing that all events are pretty much there in my mind :) I got to know that I will take KT from Richa Sinha and Imran. Then got to know about Chandigarh team, Natasha was one of them. Altaf will be my manager and we will work in a project for Aircel's app store. And it all started.......
Everyone used to be in there world, Charu, Salleen used to do some presentations. Pawan, Pranav and the Android gang ever showed any interest even in smiling back. iPhone team was all serious Hetal, Hardik, Madhu, Swapnil everyone used be engrossed in their work and I felt like no one was interested in saying Hi or making friendship as there were bonds already built amongst themselves. I only knew Rashi and I used to talk to her for everything, and what I had heard from Aneesha that she used to be scared of me??? ( can someone be scared of me :D lol ).
I actually felt many many times that I don't belong here... I remember one day at coffee table I asked Hetal "aap smile nahi karte ho kya?"...

to be continued....

We the Mango People

The story never ends, it continues till its writer and his or her writing capabilities are intact. We the Mango People never take a stop and "... and then they lived happily thereafter". We always start from where we left yesterday, we take our relations, emotions, anger, happiness to the next level on next day, hour, minute... each measure of time.
We the Mango People, living in world of dreams and desire. Desire which gives screenplay for most of our dreams. We run like a deer who is being chased by a "tiger". This tiger relentlessly follows this deer, at every path, at every juncture of his/her life. If sometimes deer is tired and want to take rest, his parents, relatives and "wants" dancing in his/her mind do not allow that. The role of deer is defined he has to run, no matter what. Very fortunate deers realize that "kasturi" is exactly within them.....
We really like to "tag" people. We love when tiger catches deer, because we think that one down in the race, but we forget that now probability to become prey is more. We allow all sorts of exceptions for ourselves, only ourselves. We try to find meaning of Life through out our life.
We the Mango People... I am going to write about each and everyone who were around, whom I have heard, whom I have seen, whom I have observed, whom I have imagined, whom I have worshipped on what they seemed than what they are...
Actually names, stories are not related to anyone but they may be closer to someone... you should think that these are fictional characters but at some corner of the world I am sure they exist :)

Story of tear before he reached his destiny

There was no space..
I was still standing looking at all the memories which heart was reading
I felt like I should hold him and console...
Those were the moments which were written for you, no more, no less.
But he couldn’t let it go...
He was running in all those memory lines, trying to hold back each moment again
I couldn't bid adieu to him right away
I was lingering at the corner of an eye... but when he broke his limits and couldn't hold him anymore, I felt so that is it!!
I couldn’t see that more and thought I should give him some space
And I left him alone...
Could still feel that warmth and just said one thing...
“I will be forever with you…” take care

Vayam

People sounds too “Nirjiv”, it’s about souls around me. There is a dedicated “vertical” in literature which handles these types of write-ups. God has created every individual unique; there can’t be 2 identical persons. So when you were going to school, college or while you are working; you meet so many interesting, lovable, cute, intelligent, arrogant, selfish, dull, dumb, happy-go-lucky, aloof, (the list is endless…) people. Each one of us can come up with a book on them J
There is set of people, who live in their cocoon, if you are able to break that or barge into it, you would discover so many beautiful interesting things about them that you would curse their habit of keeping themselves “shielded”.

Then there is another category called as “Jagan-Mitra”, these folks just enter into your life as your childhood, youth make their path. You don’t even realize when you met for the first time and when it turned into “a true friendship”.

Then there are certain people, who will be “happy-go-lucky”. I call them angels or “gandharv”. When they are around you forget everything, their company is so much fulfilling that they spread happiness around their “sphere of influence”. These are really God’s children, who are far far away from all the treachery, deceit, jealousy or some kind of bad vibes. You just want to enjoy their company. They do not categories for friends, they think in the same way for a person whom they met in the bus just an hour back or a friend from childhood.

Didn’t I mention just so called “good” people around us, where are the “bad” sets? Actually they don’t exist, they are just the perception. What the F***? You don’t live in ideal world, you don’t live in “Satya-Yug”… there is this set very much in existence. Okay okay, I agree, but have you ever thought that you might be in the same set for someone? Have you ever thought that, what would be feeling of a “Killer” for his own son? Does that mean that “Killer” would be bad for his son as well? Or let’s put it in other way, “Is that Killer’s son is able to understand the bigger picture?”

Why are we even thinking about this… the reason I am mentioning is because it’s all about perception, situation and our view-point. Our point-of-view changes about situations, people when any of the above mentioned 3 things’ orientation changes. The Good, The Bad, play their role as it has been written, many times scripted because of our deeds of previous birth or our current deeds. If we apply physics, mathematics or any modern science, we can very well understand this. How come sins committed by me will go without any account balance? This is something which should be left for individual’s “chintan-manan”…

Whatever I wrote till now was kind of monologue. When I was portraying some characters, I felt like “who am I to typecast someone?” Then the answer comes as you are “You” who should try and understand the complicated equation of differentiation where limit is tending to ∞ (both + and -) and we trying to deduce our “I” and then integration again ranging from +∞ to -∞ of all our deeds and finally get the value of 0 which is

“Om, Purn mad:, Purnam midam,
purnat purn mudacchate.
Purnasya purn maday,
purna mewawshishyate”.

ते वादळ...

ते वादळ आलं ती बहुदा मुळे आणखिन घट्ट करायला
तुमच्य़ा आत्म्याला हलवुन दाखवुन द्यायला तुमची शक्ति
आणि मग त्या थ्योड्या मोकळ्या झालेल्या मातीमधे परत घट्ट रुजवायची मुळे झाडाने

उगाचच वादळाला दोष दिला तेंव्हा
त्याने तर मदतच केली होती आपल्याला, अधिक द्रुढ बनायला
सारं आकाश, जमीन आणि अंत:करण यातल्या कचरयाचा निचरा करायला

मग तोच उडालेला कचरा गोल गोल फ़िरून दमला आणि शांतपणे दूर जाउन बसला
आता सारं काहि स्वच्छ झालय… परत एकदा वळवाचा पाऊस पडणार आहे
त्या पहिल्या म्रुदगंधामधे मोर नाचणार आहे… मंत्रमुग्ध होऊन…