Tag: Social

The change that fueled life

When I was about to graduate from my engineering college, I felt the uneasiness created by the upcoming change in my life. I felt sad by the thought that soon my college life will be gone. At that time, a very good friend of mine told me that “change is the norm”. And moreover, some changes are irrevocable and one has to accept them anyway.

Very soon my work life began. I was excited to begin a new life. But at the same time, I was little bit skeptical about going 2500 kms away from my home. “Is it worth it?” I asked myself. And guess what, yes, that change in my life was for good. I will cherish those memories for life.

As a matter of fact, I believe most of the changes in our life prove to be good at some point of time or other. When I moved to Southern part of India, I got a chance to experience an entirely new life, to learn so many new things, get familiar with a culture totally different from mine and meet people who are different yet same as I.

When I was in my hometown, I never liked South Indian food, or I can say that I never liked South Indian food cooked in North India. I was prejudiced that I will get the same food there. And fast forward to 1 year later, it became a norm to eat dosa in breakfast for me. I literally loved some of the South Indian dishes.

I am from Northern part of India where we experience extreme weather phenomena throughout the year. There are too much hot dry summers, too much humid summers, excessive rainy season, pleasant spring and extremely chilly winters. It is good to experience all types of weather but all this in a single year sometimes make it difficult.

In South India, I found that weather can be uniform as well. While Mysore and Bangalore were so pleasant throughout the year, Hyderabad only got somewhat hot only for 4 months. That was a new experience and I realized that it was good too in its own way. However, it seemed monotonous to me after being in North for such a long time.

Gradually, all my prejudices were gone and I enjoyed my stay there. And finally, one day, I had to leave that place too. I still remember the day I left that place. I felt really bad. Remember, this was the same place which was thousands of kilometers away from my home and I was feeling bad when leaving it.

This taught me that sometimes some changes in life seem really big and our inner inertia may obstruct us from committing to that change. But most changes are for good and we should overcome that fear and take the opportunity to experience something new. I took my chance and it was definitely worth it.

A company named Housing.com has changed for good. You can visit Housing.com to experience the good change.

March 12, 2015
When a stranger made me smile

Image Source: www.forangelsonly.org

At a certain point of time, we start believing that there is nothing good left in this world. But, there are those little moments in life which make us realize that we are wrong, that there are still so many good people in this world and it brings smile to our face, a relief in our heart.

In the present day life where everyone is running around aimlessly, competing with others to win some race, everything seems full of pessimism. At a certain point of time, we start believing that there is no one with a good heart left in this world. But there are those little moments in life which make us realize that we are wrong, that there are still so many good people in this world and it brings smile to our face, a relief in our heart. And I found those moments a few months ago while travelling in Delhi Metro.

It was the evening of a very hectic day full of surprises and I did not want any more surprises. I still had so much to do and I wanted to be at peace. The overly crowded Delhi Metro is no more a place for peace lovers. You can find people fighting for seats, boys leching on girls or people holding their pockets tightly, trying to avert pickpockets.

I got a seat after 4-5 stations. But I still had 30+ stations to go and had to change metro at on place. The battery of my mobile was down so I could not play any games on it to kill time. Suddenly, I noticed that the passenger sitting next to me was watching a movie on his mobile phone. I started watching it though I could not hear the sound.

This went on for a while. Suddenly, that passenger looked at me, smiled and offered me one of the ear buds of his earphone and turned the phone’s screen towards me so that I can also watch the movie. I was surprised. But I had nothing to do. So, I accepted his offer and put the earbud in my ear. The man politely explained me the story of the movie which I missed till that point of time and then we started watching the movie. I felt really good as if my tiredness was gone.

In between, we talked about various things, though I was not much interested in trivial talks. Also, I was a little bit skeptical about him. How can someone be so friendly with a stranger in the present day world? But he was an exception. I double checked my wallet and phone, everything was at its place.

I started enjoying the movie with him and did not even realize that I was just 4 stations away from my destination. At that station that man deboarded the train. Before leaving, he said a very nice good bye and greeted me with a smile which I reciprocated. We never asked each other’s name and we may never recall each other’s faces even if we meet in future. It made me sure that the man did all this without any expectation of gaining something from me. He was just sharing his happiness with me. And someone has rightly said, happiness is multiplied when shared with others.

It made my day. I was no more skeptical about the world. There are still so many affectionate people who smile at strangers without any bad intention. From that day onwards, everything around me looked even more beautiful. more positive. I realized that world is full of optimism if we are willing to look at it. And once we start looking at it, life becomes more beautiful.

The memories of that heartwarming journey will always be there in my heart and I will contribute towards making this world a happier, more beautiful and optimistic place.

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March 11, 2015
The sacrifice of Ravana..

While sitting in his golden chair, Ravana was still wondering whether his sacrifice proved useful to mankind. It has been more than 3000 years and people on earth are still doing bad things by giving various stupid excuses, one of them being religion.

Being extremely powerful, Ravana could not be defeated or killed. He was the greatest warrior and knowledgeable person of his time. When he first heard about Rama from his sister, he could not resist himself from meeting him.

At that time, world was not good anymore. With increasing number of bad people, the ratio of good ones was reducing significantly. His one meeting with Rama changed everything. Though it is not documented in the formal history, it changed the course of mankind and created an epic story in the form of Ramayana.

Ravana started creating chaos and established himself as a powerful con man. Rama was already considered a great man. People considered Ravana as undefeatable. But his end by Rama affirmed the long taught concept of conquest of goodness over evil. And it did help for some time.

Ravana was interrupted by a beautiful unicorn wandering in the forests of heaven. It was so calm and divine here. He remembered his last moments on earth when entire human population was celebrating the victory of Rama and cursing Ravana for being bad. Ravana took it all because he was assured that world is going to be a better place because of his sacrifice.

But the world has not changed for good. There is no more Rama. There is no more Ravana as well. Being black and white was the thing of past. Now it is about shades of grey. A combination of Rama and Ravana in every person. And it seems that the ratio of Rama is getting lesser with each passing day.

It was Dussehra. Ravana saw that the people on earth were celebrating by burning his effigies. Children were dancing with joy, adults were enjoying their day off with their children, some of them utilizing the crowd to molest some girls, pickpockets enjoying their peak season where they find maximum crowd and pick more pockets, fireworks makers utilizing child labor to make fireworks to sell them at higher margins, murderers and criminals worshiping their weapons as if they have done a good thing by killing people using them etc.

He could not see it anymore. As soon as the festival was over, people were again back to their work forgetting everything Dussehra was meant for. No one got inspired to do good things, to stop people from doing bad things. The sacrifice of Ravana was useless. He was just a story now.

Disgruntled Ravana was feeling utterly sad first time in thousands years of his stay in heaven. Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned back to find that it was Rama with ever assuring smile on his face.

He said that world may have lost the meaning of Rama and Ravana, but there are powerful people in the world who act as Rama and Ravana at the same time. The world has changed, but we do not know whether it is for good or bad.

All we can do is wait to see how it turns out to be. And if it doesn’t go well, we can always go back there to start our never ending war of good vs bad, creating another Ramayana. If you want, this time you can play the role of good one and I will play the bad one. We can call it Ravanayana. After all motivating people to be good is all we want.

Ravana, little bit assured, took a deep breath and went back to his golden chair. He smiled, his sacrifice was not a waste after all.

(To be continued…)

Note: This is a work of fiction inspired by the epic Ramayana and the current scenario of human society.

October 3, 2014