Life is a sojourn

It was probably my 8th or 9th birthday when I had got a greeting card, from one of my maternal uncles, which had the first line as “Life is a sojourn here on earth”. Then a brief (excerpt) of some advice/thoughts followed this which I don’t remember, but the word sojourn remains etched in my mind since that day. Back then I did not understand the meaning of that word and I am not sure if I ever got a chance later to use it anywhere. Here is an opportunity for me to use it after around 20 years.

I have moved to US last month on an onsite assignment, which could last a year (or less if they plan to kick me out :D). The location is in Phoenix (Arizona)… yes it is HOT, and people are saying this is just the beginning, phew! I find it funny when people say that this is a good weather for you to come here. Even A/B said that I would enjoy the summer. I had stayed alone for months together earlier, but that was at home itself when mom was visiting dad in his transferred places. Here it is alone in an altogether new country where I am trying to get used to call the ‘room/apartment’ as ‘home’. Add to that trying to juggle the new work routine with other daily chores which includes cooking. It has been quite a month so far! Thus begins a new tag The American Sojourn, which hopefully will see some more posts, considering the frequency of posts over the last year he he he. I wish that this experience teaches me something good for the future.

Life is not just the part before death

When I was a kid I used to go to my mother’s native place every summer holidays. I had lost my paternal grandparents quite early; I do have a faint memory of grandmother, but none of my grandfather. So my maternal grandparents were the ones I was very much attached since childhood. As a kid I was always overjoyed at the prospect of going to their place because it meant being pampered (as the only grandchild that time) by them and also getting to play games with my maternal uncles, who were yet to get married and so had more time for me he he. I used to help grandfather in performing the morning puja and would tell him to bring me a big watermelon while coming back home. While coming from work he really used to bring a huge watermelon even if it meant carrying it and the bicycle along from the market to the home. When I grew up old enough to understand the distance he had to walk with the watermelon I used to tell him not to bring anything, but he still kept on bringing them because he knew my love for watermelons and more than this love it was his love for me.

Later when mom used to tell me the hardships grandfather had faced while growing up I remember crying each time I heard the stories. In his early teens he had lost his father and elder brother, and being the eldest surviving son he had to bear the weight of supporting the rest of the family. They lived in poor times and education was for the privileged class, so he started a menial job in a garment store along with his younger brother. Many times they slept without food in their stomachs, but they were hell bent on following the principle of honesty and never did they stray to a path of earning money illegally. Gradually he set up a tea shop which later started serving misal-pav* as well. Working hard over many years the brothers set up a full-fledged misal-pav outlet. They did not have (still do not have) any outsider chef/cook to prepare it, but had mastered the art of preparing the misal themselves. The space for the shop was small, but the tasty dish had a long queue throughout the day. Standing near the hot stove the entire day (grandfather worked till he was 69 and his younger brother still works this hard at the age of 70) they used to churn out delicious misal and keep their customers happy.

Honesty and hard work were two important lessons which grandfather always taught his children, grandchildren and anyone who was associated with him. Not only his talks but his entire life was a paradigm of these two principles. Generosity was another virtue for which he used to get bouquets as well as brickbats. With the shop doing well he used to generously donate money to the needy. A poor man was fed well at the shop without asking for money. He used to tell that he had himself experienced going without food for many days, so when in a position to help others one should not turn our backs to them. And he used to say that helping others should come from the heart and not just to please God or someone else. These traits had earned him so much respect and friends from all classes of the society. Around 500 people had turned up at his funeral which had farmers to politicians. I think I have around 200 to 300 ‘friends’ on Facebook and Orkut, and I wonder if even one-tenth of them will show up in mine.

A year ago he had started having problem with his eyesight and a few tests revealed that he had cancer in the second stage and it was spreading rapidly. We consulted a lot of doctors and every doctor dissuaded us from opting for chemotherapy treatment as it would not help and in fact would cause him more pain at this age. On learning about the disease he straightforwardly said that a good lifespan is of 60-65 years so whatever he was living was a bonus life and being satisfied he had no qualms in leaving the world. I have seen a few cancer patients losing their mental balance in the end. Grandfather was calm and composed till his last moment (His younger brother and my mom had a major role though in keeping him calm by talking of all good things in his life and the struggle he faced so far which will guide the next generations to stand tall in failures and not get dejected at any point). On Saturday, my wife and I reached the hospital where he was admitted around 10 days back. He was on a ventilator that day and his tongue was tied to prevent it from blocking the throat. He smiled looking at us and raised his hands to bless us. I remembered the conversation I had with him the previous weekend when I had spoon-fed him in the same hospital room. About an hour later he went in to a coma and passed away the next morning. During the last day rituals, the dead body is sprinkled with (holy) water from the Ganges and clothes are changed before proceeding to the cremation ground. The priest who was in charge of the rituals pulled grandfather’s arm so mercilessly while changing the clothes that in spite of knowing that he won’t feel it my cousin brother and I asked the priest to do it slowly. The dead body is subjected to so many things in a short span of time that I started wondering if the rituals hurt the deceased person’s family more. I advised a young cousin to remember to care for a person when that person is alive, because repenting for not having done something for them after their death is of no use.

Last month he would have turned 74. I miss him a lot and hope that every young family member grows up to become a good person that my grandfather had envisioned.

* The Wikipedia article is in a very rudimentary form. Better description and images can be found out online.

Life is a small boat in a pond

An excerpt from Paulo Coelho’s Eleven Minutes:
Today, while we were walking around the lake, along that strange road to Santiago, the man who was with me - a painter, with a life entirely different from mine - threw a pebble into the water. Small circles appeared where the pebble fell, which grew and grew until they touched a duck that happened to be passing and which had nothing to do with the pebble. Instead of being afraid of that unexpected wave, he decided to play with it.

In our lives we encounter many such waves which seem to be unexpected. If we are not disturbed we think they are good not worrying about the source of the pebble, but if they disturb us then we label them as bad and start looking for the source that disturbed the serenity of our pond. We get caught up in incidents for which the sources are unknown or very far from our reach, but some of these incidents cause a huge impact on our lives. A year back when the economic recession had hit the world, we all felt the jolt. For some it might have been minor and for others it could have been major. A huge number of people lost their jobs and in many cases even the hard workers were not spared because the companies had no other option. I knew a guy from my previous company who was one day asked to leave with many others. He was the only earning member of a family of four, which included his old mother, wife and a small kid apart from him. He knew that his mother and wife won’t be able to take in the sudden shock of losing a job, so he never told them about the dismissal. For the next five-six months he followed the same routine which he had been doing – leaving on time for work with a lunch box every morning and returning home about 10 hours later. During the day he would run around to different companies with a copy of his resume to find a new work place. Everywhere he faced rejection because every company was on a retrenchment drive and not in a recruitment mode. He found a small odd job later and once the recession was over he was back with a bang in a new place. He kept the entire thing hidden from his family just to make sure that they were not affected in a negative way. Today this guy is earning much more than what he would have at the previous organization. I also know another guy from the same company who even today is sitting at his home just because he took the dismissal to heart and refused to look for a job or starting up some small business on his own. He finds solace in blaming everyone (from America to his manager) for the loss of his job, but he neither wishes to make corrections nor wants any deviations in his charted course of life. He is simply fortunate that his wife has a job and is currently managing somehow to make ends meet with a recent addition to their family.

In my new organization there is a person who travels in my bus and also was an ex-colleague of a few new colleagues of mine. Nobody, actually nobody talks with this guy. Even in the bus he is avoided and I have seen a couple of times that other people don’t even answer his simple questions. From his ex-colleagues I have learnt that this guy is a ‘foolish’, ‘dumb’, ‘good-for-nothing’ fellow and he should be kicked out of the company. Good vibes take their own time to travel around while bad ones compete with the speed of light. The next thing I heard that his manager had kicked him out of the project and he was ‘on bench’, i.e., out of work for some time. Coming from a small organization which respected every individual’s strengths and weaknesses I was somehow troubled by this thought because I considered that people could be trained to do good work, no matter how difficult the task was. I decided to talk with this guy in the bus and deliberately waited for him to take a seat first. Sitting beside him I casually smiled at him and that was all for us to start a conversation. I avoided telling him that I knew his ex-colleagues, but in fact he mentioned about them after I told him which group I work in. We talked for about 70-80 min of the bus ride and he did most of the talking. To me he seemed to be a simpleton rather than stupid. I believe he still doesn’t know how this world functions with the fierce competition in every discipline. He is definitely a bit slow, but as long he gets an understanding manager who can work on him he will be a good employee. Agreed that who has the time to spend on an under-performing employee with the stiff deadlines to meet and an ever mounting pile of work, but then employees like him will be thrown out without any considerations. I felt that if I had the authority to choose my team members (which I don’t) I would have accepted him in my team. It might have turned out to be a disaster for the project, but it might also have turned out to be the opposite. Today I heard that the allocation manager had called him up and gave him a hint that he might have to look another job. Sad thing is that, call him stupid or in my words simpleton, he did not understand the hint in its literal terms. He thought he was told that he would be ‘on bench’ for another month due to lack of projects. No one (in the management or his ex-colleagues) knows that he is the sole bread winner of his family – old mother, wife and a young daughter – living in a rented apartment in a city which is spiraling upwards everyday in terms of living expenses. I just hope he gets a good superior and his family gets enough strength to ride the waves which might rock their boat for a while.

Life is an old lady’s tears

One of the families in our neighbourhood in the earlier place comprised of an old lady and her son, who was afflicted with polio. The lady got a meagre pension from her deceased husband’s last job and the son had a bank job in which he was doing well when they left that place, to move into a bigger house, around 8-9 years back. I remember the son as a cheerful guy who used to play cricket with me, even when it was quite difficult for him to run around. During holidays I used to spend maximum time at their place. Somehow I did not get to meet him after they left to the new house. He got married, but I was not able to attend it. The lady being close to my mother always paid a visit to our house whenever she was in the neighbourhood. Around 3-4 years back I spotted him at the bank when I was running an errand. I went to his desk and noticed that he looked rather dull. He smiled back when he saw me but I felt that the cheerful guy which I knew was missing. My mom said that they were having some family problems and the lady and her daughter-in-law were not on talking terms. I am not interested in family gossip so I ignored the later part of the narration. After a few months I saw the old lady in tears while talking to my mother. I came to know that the things between the two ladies in that house had reached to such an extent that the son had asked his own mother to live in a separate house. We always hear or read stories of children neglecting their aged parents but seeing someone closely I felt very sad that day. Last week the lady had come to our house to see our Ganesh idol and also had brought a few ukdiche modak as prasad. She was looking very frail and I had to hold her by her hand while dropping her off from our house. Later back home mom told me that the son had stopped going to the bank and since he was absent for a very long time he was sacked from his job. He was facing a serious inferiority complex and had stopped using his crutches. Dragging himself on the floor he had refused to get up. So the lady was putting aside a major part of the pension as savings and was helping to fund the education of her grandchildren. She was skipping meals to save costs and on a few days she lived on 1-2 bananas only. Even then she was refusing any kind of help from others.

A few years back the son and wife had driven the old mother out of her own home. They had refused to provide monetary help to her and had left her to live off on her own. They had ordered her not to meet her grandchildren. Now the same mother is fighting a lone battle to feed the family of four and providing a decent education to the kids. What is her fault in this situation? Is life treating her badly? Rather than life it is the people who treat each other badly. How can a child, who has been brought up by his/her parents, neglect them when the parents need him/her the most? Isn’t it a child’s basic responsibility to support the parents? I mean the answers are so simple yet we fail to think clearly. That day I vowed that the least I can do for my parents is to respect them and be there when they need me. I hope you also realize it in time. Last heard my mother was trying to help the lady’s son regain his confidence and had given him some confidence-booster books by Swami Sukhbodhananda. I am not sure how much that will help but I sincerely hope the family re-unites and leads a happy and healthy life.

P.S.: Uploaded a few images of our Ganesh idol and the puja.

Life is a circle

Our company has seen a trend for the last 6-7 years that people spend 2-3 years here and then they join our client company. They become client contacts on one of the many projects we handle here. 2 years back I had a team-mate in this company with whom I shared a good friendship. We both were on the same level as in title/position and pay package, but never did any thought of personal competition ever cross my mind. It might be due to the fact that I knew I was working hard enough to prove myself better than the rest of the lot. One fine day this friend of mine told me that he has resigned from our company and is joining the client company. Frankly speaking, this was a pleasant surprise to me, pleasant because I was happy for him and surprised because I wasn’t aware that there was a vacancy at the client side and many people from our company had actually applied there.

Later when he went abroad, another common friend of ours told me that since most of the client contacts were pretty much impressed with my work, the friend had kept me in dark about the vacancy. For a moment I felt bad that I had not been pro-active to look up some sites but never blamed anyone else since they were looking for a job switch and they did what they thought was right for them. I mailed this friend asking him how he was putting up in the new country and asked him to pass over his new mobile number. He replied back that he was a client now and I was a contractor/vendor so he wanted to maintain a distance. I actually felt bad reading that reply. I was looking for my moment of vengeance since that day and a few days back I got the message that this guy was terminated on grounds of poor performance. Now he is jobless and with added responsibility of a newly married life. Sweet revenge? Actually it should have been but I felt sad for him. Maybe I should thank him for not letting me know the vacancy otherwise I would have applied, got selected (another client contact who is a senior told me last month that they were expecting my resume for that post and had finalized before the interviews to pick me up) and maybe got kicked out due to the recession period. I should be happy that I stayed back, did good job on the work front, convinced two sets of parents that I was a good boy for the girl I wanted to marry, got married with her, and I am spending a good time with my set of wonderful friends. Yes, I did miss out on a better pay package. I did miss out going abroad. But I am sure my turn will come one day. After all, life goes full circle.

Life is an expectation

I was reading Parag’s blog and came across a post about expectations. I paste an excerpt directly from the reader feed (without his permission, sorry for that).

We take some people for granted. We make up a mind about how they are, how they behave, how they'll react and then we expect. Expectations is always the root cause of turbulence. I read a quote few days back which has stuck in my mind. Cause of all bad is ignorance and laziness.

Going back, when we have a certain getup of a person in mind, we make expectations of how they are. And when they cross those boundaries we feel they have done something that was at least not completely right, if not wrong.

Now that is very true, isn’t it? You can easily remember when someone crossed the boundaries but can you remember when you crossed the boundaries? As I was reading that post I remembered an incident which took place not quite long back. My dad, my soon to be father-in-law and I were sitting at our place that day. Somehow the topic of discussion turned to wedding anniversaries and I congratulated both of them for completing a combined more than half century years between them in their respective marriages. They started handing over tips to me in the talk and both mentioned that for a successful marriage or for that matter any successful relationship one needs to stop expecting. Where there are expectations there is bound to be disappointment at a point. Bitterness follows disappointment and dents a huge blow to the relationship. Lastly they concluded that not expecting is a very tough job as it comes to us naturally.

And Sam Walton had said
High expectations are the key to everything

I expect that all of you have a nice weekend :-)

Life is a dream

Streets we have never walked on
windows we have never opened
hands we have never held
dreams we shall never, never see again

lives we have never lived
hopes we have never realized
fires we have never lit
loves we shall never, never make again

sun in the earth, sunflower
bird in the air, rain
eye within eye, daybreak
i hear the strange whispers again

Baanwara mann dekhne chala ek sapna

A nice track from the movie Hazaaron Khwaahishen Aisi. It does take a lot courage, hard work and patience to achieve one’s dreams but I think it needs more courage just to dream. To dream what seems unachievable. Pushing yourself to the next level when you know you just can’t go any further. I am not sure who quoted this but a wonderful quote:

Dream is not what you see in sleep. It is the thing which does not let you sleep.

Baanwara or not keep on dreaming and keep faith that one day you will achieve them no matter what the entire universe advises you.

Life is a train

Eric Foreman says "Life is like a train. It's bearing down on you and guess what; its gonna hit you. So you can either start running when it is far off in a distance or you can pull up a chair, crack open a beer... and just watch it come."

I want to take a look in the future. Now, where did that stupid crystal ball roll away?

Life is a dilemma

The mystery gets solved. The dilemma is dealt with. The choice is made. Neo is happy. And then comes another crossing and another fear. The Oracle says life is always full of dilemmas and crossings, it is just that we concentrate on one or two, which we feel are the important ones out of the whole lot.

I was never ever tensed in my life as today. Pray for me.

Life is a circus

A tête-à-tête with a circus clown…

How is the circus life?
Tough! Less people are coming to watch the circus these days and survival is becoming a challenge every day.

Why did you become a clown?
I like to make people laugh. Seeing a smile on the faces of people is a wonderful thing.

But if your life is so tough how do you manage to be content by making people smile? And more importantly how do you manage to make them smile if your life is sad?
Hmm… interesting question. The people who come to watch a circus do not share the sorrows of their lives with me. But I am aware that they are here to forget all that and have a good time. A clown’s important task is to make them forget all the pain and keep them smiling from the moment they enter the circus tent till the moment they step out. You know sandalwood? When you rub a sandalwood piece it gives out a nice smell. We clowns remember this and even when our lives are not so happy we make sure to make our customers happy. At the end of the day, we neither know the suffering of people coming here nor we share any of our problems with them, so what really matters is the sharing of a few smiles which gives me a peaceful sleep at night. I think everyone should be like a clown in their lives – expect less and give more.

I walked out a bit wiser from that short conversation. A joker is important in a circus and a pack of cards as well. Are you a joker in your life?

Life is a fairytale

Saturday, 10th May 2008 will go down in the annals of history as freedom day. Probably!

Sir Teabing was responding to Sophie's query:
Meaning that history is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books - books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, "What is history, but a fable agreed upon?"
It remains to be seen who will be the winner and loser; or will history just repeat itself?

I need some sleep.. it can’t go on like this - Eels

Does anybody know how to feel happy and sad over something at the same time? It is like pasting a beaming smile on your teary-eyed face.

Heart beats are the biggest hypocrites in this world. They beat in your body but always dance to the tune of someone else.

I can’t sleep, I m up all night.
Through these tears, I try to smile
I know, the touch of your hand, can save my life
But don’t let me down, come to me now,
I got to be with you somehow
And now that you are gone,

I just wanna be with you