Happy New Year

Tomorrow will be a brand new year. Now is the chance to draw the curtains on the year gone by and unveil a new year seductively laden with fruits of potential and coquettish with its offer of better things to come. For me, the first few weeks are going to be really crucial as next week is results week. On Monday, CAT results are expected, Tuesday it would be NMIMS and on Saturday SNAP results would finish off a week filled with, I don’t know what kinds of emotions…As Sherlock Holmes remarks “It is a capital mistake to theorize without data”

For now, I’m going to put all anxiety behind and enjoy today’s New Year party with my friends, because I think that’s the smart thing to do 🙂

Happy New Year. Have a Fantastic year ahead.

The Seeker

While reading Khalil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’. I was mesmerized by the lines in which he says: “Deep is your longing for the land of your memories and the dwelling place of your greater desires; and our love would not bind you nor our needs hold you.” These lines left a profound impression on me. I had first read this line in Kalam’s ‘Wings of Fire’. When Kalam seeks permission from his father to go and study outside Rameshwaram (the place where he was born and brought up), his father quotes Gibran and sums up his feelings and stance. Thinking from the point of view of young Kalam, I was wondering how difficult it would be to forsake the land of one's memories and seek the dwelling place of one's greater desires. Human beings are wont to live in closely knit groups. The factors that influence decisions are many. Sometimes, we have to take a call on going afar to greener pastures, leaving behind many things that have contributed in making us what we are..

The question to be asked is, is this tantamount to betrayal? Do we essentially leave a part of us behind when we leave?

There are no definite answers of course. Man is essentially a seeker and the world we live in today is testimony to this fact. Life, Liberty and pursuit of happiness have long been recognized as inviolable rights and they thus support the cause of following your dreams even if that means sacrificing emotions and love and bonding at the altar of ambition.

Responsibility is something that has to be understood rather than preached. The ‘Middle-Path’ propagated by the Buddha might be relevant (in a sense) to a certain extent but essentially, it all boils down to one’s approach to life; about what one wants from life and the trade-off one is prepared to bear..

Good Day.

St. Catherine’s School Party

 

Having a Whale of a time with the Kids

Pic taken using Subodh’s Nokia 6681 in Normal mode.

Hi

Today I read Rashmi Bansal’s blog. She is the founder and editor of JAM Magazine. An IIM-A graduate and entrepreneur. I noticed a very contemporary line of thought in her post titled ‘Madonna- a fading brand’, i.e. of reinventing oneself to suit the times and to survive. Entertainers, performers, sportspersons, Brands etc have to adapt to be long lasting. Here I am tempted to postulate Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection and the survival of the fittest etc, however I think its applicability is increasingly becoming more and more restricted. A lot of factors hitherto thought to be uncontrollable have become tame and now inevitability is branded as failure. I’ll just leave that thought for now..

On the Exams front, with the results imminent, anxiety and uncertainty have ceased to be mere words 🙂 , but since it’s the party season, I have decided to enjoy myself and well…Kay sera sera…

Christmas Eve

‘The Spirit of Christmas..The joy of giving..etc etc’ … I have lost track of the number of times I have used such phrases while writing. Yesterday, I realized that it is one thing to make use of beautiful phrases and another thing to experience it.

Jiger,Nandan, Sujit, Meera, Kejal, Ravneet, Subodh and I went to St.Catherines home as planned. There were about 200 kids. Most of the kids were aged between 5-8. All the kids were as boisterous as you would expect them to be at their age and controlling them was a task that all the volunteers (about 25 of us!) had underestimated and suddenly every one of us was at sea!!

The cause wasn’t helped by the kids jumping all over us, some exhorting us to carry them some wanting balloons, some pulling at shirt sleeves!! Well how do you think you used to behave during those school breaks when you were in kindergarten!!

We had a drawing competition for the kids and prizes were given to the best artwork on display. Each and every kid was photographed in the new T-shirts that were gifted. After the photo session, it was time for a break and frooti and biscuits were gulped down in a hurry.

Music and dance time!!- The influence of TV and radio was on full display as the kids danced and karaoke-d to the hot new music tracks… Then Santa made his appearance and was promptly assaulted by the kids

Finally tired after all the dancing and bogeying, it was time for dinner : samosas, wafers and cakes were served.

Soon it was time to leave..and it was after coming home that I began to think about the kids. Those kids were in every way as you would expect all kids of their age to be..naughty, rowdy, and very loving. You have to experience — a little kid, arms spread wide asking you to carry her….a tiny little bald girl (who was the naughtiest of the lot) , snuggling up to you asking you to help her draw a christmas tree, a cow, a goat and a santa clause…..a tiny boy asking you to hoist him up on your shoulders and make him dance….—- to know what it means to those kids to have someone spend sometime with them. They know that the evening is going to get over, that we are going to return to our homes, being fortunate enough to have one, but they try and make the most of it and in them, I see a spirit of life that I fail to see in many of my colleagues, friends and family.

Merry Christmas..