Life is Beautiful

Life gives us so much – much more than we ever can think of!! It's biggest gift to us is ‘itself’; were we not in a dark, unknown realm before it touched us? Did we know about its existence, did we ever crave for it, did we fight our way to reach it? No. It came to us…..slowly, steadily, tip-toed towards us & engulfed us in a warm embrace. That’s when we are born & what do we do – cry aloud. Why? Are we not happy with the gift, perhaps we want more from it.

“Look at him; he has everything a man could wish for – money, power, a beautiful wife & all the perks that comes with his position. And look at me, why does life have to be so unfair?”
“Look at him; he has everything a man needs – loving kids, dotting wife, time alongwith a wonderful family he can spend ‘it’ with..…..if only life cared to give me atleast one of these?”

The grass is always green on the other side. Busy comparing our lives with others, we forget to live our own lives. If we can just be our own unique self, if we could leave the world aside & live our own life, then we can appreciate how beautiful it is!! If the not-so-rich man could realize this fact, he could have valued the presence of the wonderful people around him who love him for what he is. He would have known that the source of motivation that propels him to excel is his close-knit family so that he can tend to their needs. Life led him to his loved ones & now life is giving him time to fathom the underlying truth, but time never stands still, and as usual is running away .The sooner he realises the better for him otherwise he will end up losing those whom no materialistic thing can replace. If he runs out of time then his success won’t be success. He might have a much bigger house but it will not be a home, he might have number of flatterers but no real friends, he might have power, means, luxury but he will not have the time & loved ones to share it with. That doesn’t mean one should be wary of success. On the contrary, success is necessary to live life rather than lead life. But the trick is to keep in mind the source of motivation always, which you tend to forget. You take them for granted till the point they are no longer there. And then even if you have climbed till the top it loses its significance because the people for whom this feat has been achieved are no longer there to cheer. You are alone. Rather if you had attended to them as & when needed on the journey, probably you would have to climb down once in a while, you might even take much longer than you should have but finally when you do reach where you want to – your loved ones are there for the grand finale; they are there to share the award!! You have achieved success without losing your source of motivation which will propel you to further heights & greater success. Does this not sound better?

On the other hand the rich man, if he envies the common man’s wealth of love & bonding - he is a classic example of the person who has failed to preserve his source of motivation in his pursuit of success. His only motivation now, is his greed for power & money & it does not take a genius to understand that this is devastatingly unhealthy. He is lonely, but he doesn’t realise that life is still with him. Even now he can find purpose in his life. His success is development afterall, could be local, regional or national or even global. Whatever it is, his success would lead to development (read success) of those who are in some way involved in or contributing to his success. He could live his life for them. He could feel their sense of achievement, their happiness on fulfilling small time dreams which matter to them, as his motivation factor to excel, to soar higher. In the process he will also earn true followers who will be devoted to him since they owe their success, however small or big, to him. So he will no more be lonely as he will be surrounded by people who love & respect him from the bottom of their heart. He will get back the life which was amiss in his life.

The mirror always shows our own reflection. If we want it to smile back, we should not be frowning at it rather we should smile as long as it does not return a similar reflection which undoubtedly it will at some point. All we need to do is trust it, live it & love it – and it reflects back all that we give & much more – much more than we expect & probably much more than we deserve. Few of us do not realize this & shun it away, betraying life in a way. A little insight & afterthought on the journey we have had with life till now will prove how much we owe to life & how much of it can we give back till we reach our common destination. The least we can do is enjoy its beautiful & enigmatic company till the journey’s end!!

Wasted Weekend

Last weekend was quite a long one, Friday being Labour’s Day. We (me & my husband) stayed at home as I had a GDPI scheduled rather "conveniently" on Saturday. Anyways Friday we had been invited to our relative’s place for lunch & the rest of the day just moved on.......

On Saturday I had this GDPI (I would not name the institute as I am not going to say too many good things about it :D). We left early in the morning since we had to reach the venue by 8:30 & the college was quite some distance from the outskirts of Bangalore. The college had a huge campus; it was typically a residential course. The construction was still going in some parts. Frankly speaking I was there just to boost my adrenaline levels. I am not mad enough to spend 9-10 lakhs on an MBA course from any college. Fine, if its an IIM or ISB, no one’s going to think before shelling out 10-20 lakhs. But with this college, I just couldn’t expect a return on investment. But they had few rounds in their GDPI session (GD stands for group discussion & PI for personal interview), which I did find interesting. They had a preliminary elimination before the PI based on the scores in the test which would be of the GMAT format & an extempore. I simply wanted a general assessment of how I would fare in both of these, as these tests kind of stimulate me & extempore would be good experience as I hardly knew how I would react to it. PI held least interest for me as I was not particularly inclined to grab a seat there. Even after reaching the venue on time, i.e, 8:30, the test didn’t start before 10:00. It lasted for 45 minutes & it was as simple as it could be. The next in line – the extempore, didn’t take much time & started around 11:15. There were 15-20 expectants in our room & 2 panelists, apart from the 2 hosts who were there to guide us through the rules, etc. My turn was somewhere in between, so I had the opportunity to listen to a few people & judge what was going wrong in their presentation & kept in mind not to repeat them. I also intended to include some novelty which uptill then was not introduced by any of them. The topic I was given was quite simple – "Westernisation of Indian Culture", a very general topic, so I did have some pre-conceived views on it which were quite unique & thus formed the introductory phase of my speech. I tried to make my presentation interesting in terms of content as much as possible in the short span of 5 minutes preparation time, & while delivering the speech I kept modulating my tone, stressing on the key points, thus I was to able to hold their attention. Panning through the room & keeping eye-contact with most of them, I was happy to notice that they were listening. The presentation was supposed to last for maximum 3 minutes though it could be less than that, also the last 30 seconds were meant for concluding the speech. Though I had completely forgotten about the time management aspect, bless my good luck, I just finished in time. Covered all my points & shot a flickering glance at the time slide running in the reverse mode, there were exact 30 seconds left, enough time for me to pack up. It couldn’t have been better!! And then a good round of clapping which just puffed me up :). After these 2 rounds they were going to put up the score chart for the preliminary elimination. In the meanwhile, there was going to be a presentation by the faculty about the college & the prospects it held for us. As instructed, all of us met in the seminar hall by 12:00 after the presentation round. However, we were again made to wait & the Faculty Presentation started around 1:45, thankfully didn’t last for long & we were sent for lunch by 2:15 with further instruction to assemble by 3:15 at the same place. I went downstairs to join my husband & we went for lunch. He said we were the last batch to leave, it was then I realized there was this other batch which was the cause of all this delay. Hungry as hell, it didn’t take much time to finish off my lunch. I didn’t feel like staying back anymore. I even asked my husband to pray my name’s not there in the list. As I said I was not going to take admission here, it was just the test & extempore that I was interested in & that was done. But my dear husband wanted me finish all of it & come. So I went upstairs again. Once inside I was chatting with a girl sitting next to me & there were few inputs from her which were kind of useful. She told me they have increased the number of seats & they would have to take almost all of us to fulfill the intake. I was little surprised. Once they had put up the list, I was sure what she was said was right. Only a handful of people were eliminated, rest were all sitting there including me. There was only one reason I was still there – to feel the sense of achievement on seeing my name in the final list. But how can you feel a sense of achievement if everyone you are competing with is selected? Though my name was put up in the preliminary list, I quietly moved out with the few whose names were not. I relayed all of it to my husband, & then started insisting to leave rather than wasting another 3-4 hrs. He couldn’t help laughing…….and after sometime we were back on the road. So much for the wasted long weekend. However, there was one good outcome that day, I managed to write a poem in the long hours of forced waiting!!