Diary

Tomorrow is my 35th birthday and I was hoping to spend some time with my cousin brother who was scheduled to be in Singapore. He is Chief Engineer on a ship and we met couple of weeks back as well, when he was stopping over in Singapore on his way to China. We were very close and all our childhood we spent lot of time together, but since then the pressures of professional life have kept us apart for a while. Infact I met him couple of weeks back after a gap of almost 5-6 years. He is globe trotting on his ship and I have been out of India for almost 7 years now, so it was difficult to find common spots on calendar. The good thing now is, he will be stopping over by Singapore often and even for few hours we will get a chance to meet and catch up.

But he surprised me today, as his ship was ahead of the planned schedule and he was in town for today. We went out for a lunch together and spent couple of hours before he returned to his ship, set to sail tonight. He gifted me a new shirt on my birthday, an early present. It just feels so nice to have an elder brother; it’s like finding a roof on your head. You feel protected and wanted with the warmth and affection he displayed. It was a very welcome change from fighting it all alone as always.. I was extremely happy to see him around and meet him and spend few moments remembering the family, childhood and fun times we used to have growing together. We all get so caught up in our daily life, we hardly reflect on who we are, how we traveled to today and all the fun we had in past. My journey was full of people, memories, love & affection from the extended family. It all seems to be left behind in this “Rat” race of life. Not that I am no having fun today, it is different from the childhood days and those are golden memories.

It was nice to take a pause just a day before the birthday and reflect. Thanks Bhaiya for stopping by and catching up - it meant a lot. Let me hit the bed now, as when I will get up tomorrow I will be older by a year J Good night.

Aussies thrashed

Australia is touring India to play seven one day international cricket match series and today was the second match. India lost narrowly the first one and it was a sad end to the spirited chase. But today India defeated Australia by 99 runs and outclassed them in every sense. A really memorable performance by Indian team. Match scorecard - http://www.cricinfo.com/indvaus2009/engine/current/match/416237.html
Cricket, since my childhood days, have been a passion of my life. I have played cricket at various levels in school, college, mohalla, and truly love the game. I am very fond of reading about it and very rarely miss watching a cricket game, especially if India is playing. Some of my best childhood memories are around cricket and playing in the matches with my younger brother ( my partner in crime ). He is equally passionate about the game and has a serious work ethic when he in on the ground. It was just impossible to even imagine losing a match, when we both played together for a team.

I have missed pretty much everything when it comes to watch a cricket match - be it school, college, exams, sleep, meals, appointments, marriages ( not my marriage though, he he), parties and you name it I must have done that "sin" to watch a cricket match in last 30-35 years. Since we moved to Singapore, I can now watch "live" matches again. It was a very dark 4-5 years in China as there was no cricket telecast in the country and I was deprived of the pleasure for a while. So now that I am back at it, I make sure I line up my day around the start time of the match and today also I was in front of TV just in time to watch the first ball.

It is just an amazing game and provides lot of entertainment. I can never wrap my feelings towards it in words – it is surreal. The adrenalin rush to see Indian team winning matches is one of best feelings. Today was almost a perfect day - India batted well, Dhoni ( Indian captain) scored a memorable century, two other batsmen came good and set an almost impossible target for Aussies to chase. When Indians had the turn to field, they got early wickets and pushed Aussie to the back foot. Match was practically over by the 25 the over of the Aussie's innings. It was a crushing defeat for them and a great clinical team effort on India's part.

Loved every bit of it !!

Time

The day passed in a hurry today – as if it wanted to go faster than I could blink. Nothing unusual or surprising, but still I am feeling as if I got up just a couple of hours back. It might as well a reflection of my state of mind because clock never speeds up or slows down. The best and worst of the days of life are exactly of the same length. The sun rises and then sets to give way to moon at the same time, irrespective of what happens in the day or what doesn't happen in the day.

Every day we get exactly the same number of hours and minutes and seconds, to do whatever we plan to or destined to do – still some days seem shorter than others. Staying alone for a while also encourages one to do introspection. I have been doing lot more inward focused thinking about myself – how and what has changed in last decades. I have not stayed alone for so long in last 10-15 years, so this means I never had this much time to reflect on the passed years.

Mind travels faster than anything in the world. One moment I am 10 years old boy, with a cricket bat in hand, my younger brother always next to me and having lot of fun in the field and in school. Another moment I am the growing up student in the engineering college, with lot of ambitions in heart and endless energy at disposal. Then few blinks later, I am the young and confident biz school grad, fearless but curious to see what the future has to offer. It is just amazing that in a short span of 30-35 years, I have gone through so many transformations already. What would it be like when I am 60-70 years old? How does my father look back at life now at 75 years? My grandfather had the privilege to live for 100 years, what would have been going on in his mind?

True, time is the fourth dimension and sets thing in perspective. We must respect it always; it is the irreversible phenomena which takes place 3600 times in an hour. It offers a never ending count of opportunities and those who catch them make the most of it.

Truth & Courage or lack of it..

A very regular routine day – started the week in office and went through some pending work as well as took some phone calls. Went out for lunch with the HR team, exchanged information on how was the weekend for everyone and then some more work and back home. I have some conference calls to go through starting around 10 pm, so thought to spend some time with you before that.

Last few days, apart from all the action on the “chath puja” front at home – I was also busy watching Mahabharat, the epic TV series, DVDs I bought recently. There are total of 8 DVDs, containing around 98 episodes of this mega epic. In last week or so, I have managed to watch some 15 episodes and it is really addictive. I get so engrossed in watching the series, that don’t even feel like getting up for dinners.

The Indian society during the Mahabharat days was at its peak and the rituals, customs were in the deepest and holy form. The smallest details of respect, blessings, karm and dharm are a pleasure to relive. One really gets to feel the fabric of Indian mega history and peep into the glorious past – how the society evolved, what were the basic principles and how they were respected by one and all. Then slowly the society matures and some of the rules / customs are twisted – the humane impurity starts finding its way. The challenges and issues of today – personal greed, disrespect, dishonesty and politics (back stabbing) all of them were present in that time as well. Slowly when they started to find the seat in the mainstream, then the society started to decline. Some of the rules were bent to benefit an individual or situation – which led to conflicts within the larger value system of the society. This conflict also meant that the very fundamental questions were repeatedly asked, but the leaders refused to answer them thus creating a war of epic proportions. The war was supposed to “solve” the moral issue and restore the peace and rule of law in the society – it was suppose to end the evil. But when the evil is within our hearts and our souls are dirty, what can be saved. A sick soul is not like an organ, which can be implanted to save the life of the patient – it marks the end of the patient itself.

And Mahabhart, the epic war, did exactly that – it was fought with intent to purify, but the extent of disease was so deep, nothing could be salvaged. A great rising society fell to its own knees and by the time the war ended, it marked the end of the era for a golden chapter in Indian history / culture.

So to me, it is very important lesson from the epic – keep one’s soul clean, be honest and take the most painful decisions on the side of truth, if that is achieved, all other short term sickness and illness can be cured. Life always present two choices, the easier one which leads to short term compromises, lies, perhaps short term success also AND the difficult one which is lead by truth and honesty, leads to lot of pains in short term but eventually meets the victory, prosperity, success and happiness. We have to make choices all the time and we need to be careful for not getting distracted; else a Mahabharat is always around the corner.

It is the same quality which has been advocated time and again by the greats of the world - Mahatma Gandhi, Lord Christ, Prophet Mohammad, Lord Ram.. - Truth and Courage will always lead to nirvana (eternal state of happiness) and it all starts with one's inner self. If we can get it right within us, the world will change, it will have to...

Chath Puja 2009 – Completed Successfully

The “maha parv” for us, this year’s chath puja is now completed successfully. Just got off from phone with my parents and I am feeling so happy and relaxed. Papa especially was the most overjoyed on this event. All of us were much tensed due to mother’s recent poor health and her prolonged sickness – but then this is the worship of ultimate source of energy – THE SUN. So the biggest energy source also guided mom and filled her with the energy and enthusiasm to complete the festival with the same zeal, rituals and devotion as she has been doing in all these years.

This year’s puja has also been very successful due to contributions from my younger brother (who flew in during the weekend just to be at home with parents) and my son. It was very satisfying to hear that he was of great help in Puja and participated with his grandmother all through the 4-5 days. Mom was telling that he acts like a matured adult person, when it comes to do puja rituals. My brother left his family and was with mom – which definitely made things easier as always. He has flown back to his city, to join office from Monday AM.

I had a very usual Sunday – played tennis with my friends in the morning. Then today India was playing Australia in the first one day international cricket match – so I was on TV (as always). In total they will play 7 matches in next two weeks and I am looking forward to the entire series. Keeping my enthusiasm aside, India lost the match in the final over / final ball infact. So it was not all very happy ending, hopefully following matches will be better from that perspective.

From tomorrow, life will be back to normal – meat in food, satisfaction in mind and wait for next year’s Chath puja, with a hope that I will be able to spend time with them in person and not like this year.

Hope is the ultimate source of life… we all thrive on it and move forward.

Chath Puja – First Aarg

Today was a very tough day for me. It is very hard to stay away from home and mom today. She is in the middle of the Chath puja and today was the evening aarg.

Today, she offered puja to the setting sun – perhaps the only festival in the world where setting sun is worshipped. Usually all mythologies, religion and cultures associate setting sun with the “end”, closure, termination of life. The splendid day is marked to the end when the sun starts to set in the west. All the warmth, human beings, animals, plants and weeds – everyone feels the source of eternal energy fading when there is no sun. The entire ecological system marks a change once sun sets. It marks the beginning of long dark night, wherein most of the evil thrives. Then sun comes out again and breathes life into the entire world – people get up, full of energy and everything is back to life, plants grow, flowers bloom. Thus it is always the rising sun which is worshipped – it is the ultimate source of power, pride, symbol of happiness and good times to come.
However in this unique Hindu festival, first the setting sun is worshipped – to show respect to the old and “once able” source. It is very important for human being to be humble and thankful to some one / something from which one has drawn life in past. And hence before tomorrow morning’s sun’s worship, today evening’s sun is worshipped and offered the same respect with the same rituals as it would happen tomorrow. It also teaches us a lesson of equanimity – towards powerful and weak, towards rich & poor, towards once almighty and the new almighty. This festival has very deep roots in richest Indian cultures and traditions, but as it is also one of the toughest, it never reached the masses like many other Indian festivals did.

I spent most of the day researching about Chath Puja over Internet, listening to the folk songs associated with this festival on you tube and watching videos of so many pujas all around the world. I was pleasantly surprised with the volume of information and details available on the web on this puja. Some useful links are here –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhath
http://chhat.tripod.com/
http://hallosushant.blogspot.com/2007/11/chhath-puja-festival-of-sun-god-chhath.html
Collection of folk songs from Chath -
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=81CBE96518C85E02&search_query=chhath+songs

Like I would have done at home, around 4 pm I took bath, and drove to the beach ( water body ). I was desperately hoping that some Indian family would turn up for “aargs” at the beach. And I walked all along East Coast Park coastline almost 4 kms to find at least one family, with whom I can participate and offer “aarg” to the Sun GOD. To my utter disappointment, I found no one. There were thousands of people of the beach and but my eyes were searching in vain. Finally I stood alone in the Indian Ocean and offered by “Aarg” to my mother and the faith which drives her and all of us. I took some snaps of the setting sun in Singapore skyline and in the ocean, tried to capture the moment of my utter loneliness and desperation.

Back home, my son was representing me in the puja. Later in the evening I spoke to my parents and they were so happy with his presence and my younger brother has flown down yesterday to be with mom in the puja. My brother and my son, filled all the voids in the hearts and also took up lot of workload off my mother’s shoulder which is involved in the puja arrangements and pre-work.
This was one of the toughest days of my life and I had never cried so much ever– guess everything has a price including growing up, taking responsibilities ….. so here I was thousands of miles away on the other side of Indian Ocean alone and praying for my mother’s good health and that this puja like all the previous 34 years is completed successfully for her and for our entire family.

Chath Puja - Day one

It was a very busy day in office. We had some visitors and I was tied up with them for most of the day in whole day meetings / reviews. In the evening I met with an old ex –colleague. We worked on some common projects around 4 years back for a very short time together, however after that he moved roles and eventually left the company for other opportunities. Our interaction back then was for a very brief period, but we struck good partnership in a short time. He was in town and I met him with another colleague of mine to catch up. He is doing very good in his own ways and it was nice to see him and meet him after a long time – must say, he hasn't changed much though.

Today is also the “kharna” puja day back home. Mom had fast whole day and after the sunset she offered “kharna” puja to the GOD. Her ~2 days fasting has started and will not end on Sunday morning after the morning sun’s puja. She was in very good mood today and gave me lot of blessing over phone. These are the days, wherever I am in the world, I miss home badly. Whole evening, I was waiting for her phone call and was so anxious to hear about her well being and completion of the puja ceremony without any incidents. Its just so hard to stay away from her in this week – I can’t describe in words. And still, over last 18-20 years since I left living with my parents and moved to hostel life, I have missed this puja many a times. During my engineering college or MBA days, I used to tell myself that I am investing in my future and hence missing the Chath puja. But since, I started working and later moved out of India, I have missed attending the puja more often. This time around however Aryan was there with his grandmother and she was ecstatic about him and how he helped her in puja preparations today. It was good to hear about him and perhaps he was representing me as he is destined for rest of life.

However, somewhere deep in my heart I am feeling very sad on missing the puja myself again this year – just one of those days on calendar, when you don’t want to be anywhere else but home. No place and no cause can justify my absence from home today. All the practical thoughts & reasoning around career, family, future, growth, wealth etc seems meaningless today – is this all worth?

I would go to sleep with a very heavy heart today and as always, I would never be able to find an answer to it.

Faith - An irrestible force within us.

Faith is a very important thing in our lives. We all have faith in something, someone, somewhere, which takes various shapes and guides us through the good times and bad.

Faith transforms into good luck, confidence, ability, timing, methods and people – when we need them most. It creates a positive energy inside our souls and directs on a path of success and happiness.

When we are born, being toddlers we place lot of faith in our parents – who in turn nurture us and teach us some of the very basics of living. When a child starts crawling, walking – he always tend to take steps towards his parents or elders in the house who show special affection to him – it is nothing but a translation of his faith that makes him take those first steps.

As we grow, we place tremendous faith in our teachers / mentors – to provide us the right mentoring and guidance so that we can shape up our future. Many a times, our initial personality is a mere reflection of our parents, teachers whom we trust and open our souls for learning, listening.

In later stages of life, faith is driven from our own judgement system, ability to make a decision in a conflicting situation. It is basically one’s faith on oneself – which comes out as confidence to others.

It is not static or fixed – I don’t think we can fully define faith without understanding the dynamics nature of it. The way it transforms, corrects and reflects based on experiences ( both positive & negative) of life. We tend to draw faith from new things, new people and new circumstances all the time. When they all work out in our favor, it leads to happiness and success and when it doesn't then it is questioned and mostly it transforms to something else over time. This constant movement of faith makes it one of the most long lasting attributes of life.

I was speaking with my mother today – she was down with Shingles few weeks back, still not back to her 100%, struggling physically to complete her day to day stuff. And she has a huge challenge ahead of her. Between tomorrow and Sunday, she would be fasting for the supreme difficult “ chath puja” – offering to the SUN God. She has been doing that for over 35 years and her faith is what is driving her this time around as well. Her whole body language, tone and strength levels have changed dramatically in last 24 hours. She has tremendous faith in this puja and she wants to make sure she completes it with all the proper rituals and customs as she has been doing it for last 35 years. That immovable faith on GOD is driving new energy levels in her. And this is not the first time I am seeing her take this enormous challenge – in past too, whenever she was down near the “chath puja” for different reasons, but during these 3-4 days, she comes out stronger, confident and has been able to complete the puja with ease.

I have always wondered, what drives this change in her -- its nothing but her faith in the GOD and the puja, which fills her with all the needed energy to overcome the tough routine of not even drinking water for almost 3 days. She crosses the physical limits of the body and connects at a very different level to fulfill the mission.

Next couples of days are very important for her, always in her annual calendar and I wish that she will continue to draw strength from her inner self and sail though these days in the same manner as she has been doing for last 35 years.

Being the lesser mortal, I will be praying for her well being and good health, while she will be focusing on the GOD and the puja customs, giving no relevance to her physical self – that’s the difference which faith brings into us.

Mahabharat

There is one epic in rich Indian history, which is very close to my heart - Mahabharat. It is a story of medieval India ( at least 2000 years before Christ was born), wherein the society reaches a peak in some senses and thus starts to decay and decline. Starting from the famous King Bharat, to all the way to Arjun, Krishna and little beyond it. It spreads over few generations and is a classic display of moral and social values and their conflict with personal interests and power. It is very close to my heart as it is almost "real", that's how human being behave when the situation sets in. Besides its epic narrative of the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kauravas and the Pandavas, the Mahabharata contains much philosophical and devotional material, such as the Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, which has a very high level of philosophical and religious content, or a discussion of the four "goals of life" or purusharthas (12.161). The latter are enumerated as dharma (right action), artha (purpose), kama (pleasure), and moksha (liberation).

There is another Indian epic - Ramayan, which is in a time period before Mahabharat, but it is more depiction of things which are perfect and ideal. If one has to set goals for behavior, social life and responsibilities one must look up to Ramayan and their main characters. They show unparalleled "correctness" when it comes to sticky conflicts. You can find the ideal brother, father, son, wife, follower and leader in Ramayan. However to me it is a touch more idealistic than I can ever imagine myself -- I feel being correct all the time may be a desire and not a consistent outcome.

However, Mahabharat and its characters, they are more "practical", if I may, in their decision making process and conflict resolutions mechanisms. There are so many different levels of the epic, each character can be researched for thousands of pages and we may still not be able to appropriately capture it in all the possible ways. Krishna, Yudhistir, Arjun, Karn, Duryudhan, Shakuni, Draupadi, Gandhari.... the list is endless. When I was growing up, in my mid teens, it used to be a TV series ( B R Chopra's Mahabharat) which spanned over almost 2 years. Every Sunday 9 am on National TV, for one hour we used to leave everything and watch Mahabharat on TV. The whole country used to virtually undergo a curfew, roads were deserted and plans were altered to meet that weekly show time. It got crazy popularity and some of the characters were immortalized by public. I guess, it was truly a milestone in Indian TV history and changed it for ever, much like the real epic itself which is part of India's rich history & culture.

All the management concepts, tricks of the books, organizational behavior, leadership traits and skills which I learned in the books years later, were on live display via the characters of the epic. The amount of learning one can have from it and still continue to have for ever is just enormous. The TV serial actually helped to bring the leanings from the Mahabarat book to common people and real life.

And guess what, after almost 18 years or more, today I found the entire TV series on a 8-DVD set. I was searching it for a while - just wanted to re-live the joy of watching the series and also see if the same story and same characters mean different things after so many years and different personal experiences.

I will try to keep you posted of my thoughts as I watch the entire TV series all over again, just got time to watch couple of initial episodes today.

Back to office

After three days of break, I returned to work. As it turned out, the Blackberry outage for last 48 hours was just not for me as a special favor. We had almost 400+ users down with the same issue. It was all caused due to a faulty script which tried to ship us (first generation BB users) from a remote US server to a newer one in Shanghai. The script did remove us respectfully, but forgot to recreate the magic on the new box, resulting in deleted accounts and no emails access for almost 2 days. I suspected something went wrong on Sunday’s scheduled maintenance window – see I am growing as an IT professional. Soon I will be able to predict failures – sorry pushing it a little bit.

Since Diwali, I am on a strictly vegetarian food, to keep up with Mom’s wishes. These 6 days after Diwali, is when we have the famous Chath puja back home. It is one of the most difficult and holy Indian festival, celebrated in a very small community across couple of provinces. During this puja, Mom keeps complete fast (even without water) almost for 2.5 days and offers “aarg” to setting and rising sun. This is an extremely tough time for her and she has been doing for 35 years, just about a year before I was born. The “SUN” god is worshipped and due to its complex and difficult customs, it is not a very popular among masses kind of festival. Back home, everyone keeps away from any kind of non-vegetarian food including onion and garlic. So wherever I am in the whole world, I try not to eat any meat during this one week in the year. So far this routine has been going on smoothly and I hope to carry on with it. My ordeal is very much simplified in this city nation, where there is a significant number of Indians and that too veggie eating Indians.

I have been reading a lot of books these days and some day I will sit down and talk about them. I usually go to bed these days, with a book in hand – very different to when Aryan and Nikita are here. I usually go to bed, reading bed time stories to Aryan – miss all that!

Good night, sweet dreams.

No Emails Day !

It is a national holiday today for Diwali, so most of the offices are closed here. I stayed at home most of the time during the day. Got up late, then had a lazy breakfast and read the dailies. There was some paper work pending, finished those small but important items.
By noon, I realized that my Blackberry is not working, no emails since morning. There was some email system upgrade over the weekend and this must be a by product of that. Mondays always have some surprises, since weekends are scheduled maintenance windows for servers and set ups globally. It is rather unusual feeling, when you don’t get the emails on your fingertips. We all have got so used to this device and speed with which we can exchange notes with people sitting miles apart. I called up couple of friends, co- workers to make sure it is not just me and this is some kind of a generic company email issue and they did confirm that.
So I decided to keep it like that – an email blackout day on my Blackberry. That red color LED never flashed since morning (WOW). I must admit, I felt totally cut off from the world and was tempted to get it fixed immediately, but I also wanted to experience it for a change. For many people, who would have emailed me must be wondering what’s wrong. I do have an impression of replying within minutes, if I have to respond to something. So basically, not a single email received and sent today – a memorable day in life after so many years of being a crazy BB user.
By evening I was feeling very itchy, with not much left to do at home, I went for a swimming session. It really feels good to spend some time in water and today being a holiday the pool was filled with kids and parents. It was nice to hang around with some of the friends and their kids in the pool for a while. Came back when I was tired enough, to get to dinner.

Going to bed now, tomorrow is a work day and would be a busy one with many pending emails!!

For last almost a year now, since we moved to Singapore, Sunday mornings have become special. If I am in city and the weather is clear, 7 am Sundays, I can be found at the tennis court. We have a small but diverse group of individuals, all of whom show up on time and with the same commitment week after week. It is a good couple of hours of sweating which leaves all of us happy after the games. You might say it is boring, but it has almost become a habit now. It doesn't matter what time I hit the bed on Sat’ day nights, I am always up in the morning on time and look forward to catch up with friends for some serious tennis. Today was no different.

Yesterday I called up many family members and friends back home. Exchanged emails, e-greeting cards, smses all of them wishing each other all the happiness and good luck. In hindsight, I believe, Indian festivals are designed to kind of promote these community behaviors and allow people to get together more often. We never had a strong sports culture as a nation and with all the struggles of daily life – the festivals kind of provide that vital break, when you can relax, bring together families and recharge your batteries for few weeks.

Yesterday, I was kindly invited for a dinner, at a friend’s place – we have known each other for almost 7 years now, kind of becoming more of an extended family than a friend. We have spent lot of time together in US, India and now here. We have lot common in professional and personal life. He has a son of almost the same age as mine and it is nice to see them growing together, they get along very well too. Had a late evening dinner, then some fire works and then drove back home well past midnight.

Back in home, Aryan – my son, enjoyed his Diwali to the fullest. All the lights dazzling out of various types of crackers and sparkles cheered him up. As he is growing up, I am happy that he is getting to know about Indian culture and customs via these fun filled festivals. His mom told me he also did the evening puja and was very serious about it. All these with the grandparents make his India stay a very special one this time.

Festivals of India - My favorites

Happy Diwali !

Today is Diwali ( Deepawali ) – festival of lights. A day when everyone in India will light up candles, diyas, distribute sweets, offer puja to Laxmi Goddess and fire crackers. People will go crazy in expressing their happiness, noise levels will break all decibel barriers and unparalleled amount of joy will spread across the nation, when the sun will set today. It would be very normal through the day, as most of the action would kick start from late afternoon. It is one of my favorite festivals and back home, everyone is busy cleaning up and lining up the decorations for the grand Diwali celebrations in the evening.
India is a land of GODs and festivals, I have seen my share of international countries and experienced various cultures / religions and festivals all around the globe. But nothing matches up to what my country offers, when it comes to festivals across the spectrum of time, religion and time. Almost every month in the year, we have one or more major festive day – each one has its unique relevance and rituals associated with it.

Some are very religion oriented – Christmas, Eid, Mahashiv ratri, Chath Puja, Janmasthmi. Some cut across regional boundaries – Dashera, Ganpati Puja, Nav Ratri. Some are celeberated on the same day but in unique ways in different parts of the country like Lohri in Punjab, Pongal in Southern states, Kite festival in Gujrat, Makar Sankranti in northern India, etc. Some are relationship oriented festivals – Rakhi ( Brother-sister), Karwa Chauth ( Husband –wife), etc. Each one of these festivals have their own history, significance, customs & rituals, dresses, food, etc associated with them. Most of them involve fasting, visiting temples / mosques / churches. Some are more inclusive than others, while some have transformed into new shapes over decades. I love each of them and all of them have lot of messages and relevance associated with them – which keeps people focused on positive side of life, true values and promotes a culture which is now hundreds of thousands of years old and still going strong.

However there are two festivals, which I like more than others and I feel are also celebrated across the nation & across the religions, with the same zeal. First one is “Holi – festival of colors” and the second one is “Diwali – Festival of lights”.

Holi marks the arrival of spring season, therefore, brings in warmth into the air. It is not just the season, which is changing, but also the mood of the people. The festival signifies the spirit of brotherhood and unity. People forget their old differences and get together to have some serious fun playing with colors, water, mud and Bhaang (Thandaai). One that one day, whether it is Mahura or Vrindawan, Mumbai or Madras, people just go over the top and no one feels offended. It is full of life and all the good things life brings to us as a community. Having spent my time in more than 8 states across the country over last 30 years, I have seen people from all walks of life, of all religious orientation take part in this colorful festival – full of masti.

View a typical Holi celeberation here - clip from a Hindi movie (Holi folk song) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_P2_WlFVME

The Holi in Kolkata is different from that of Orissa; the Holi in Bihar is different from that of Haryana. In West India, the Holi is entirely different from how it is celebrated in North Eastern state of Manipur. Holi in Barsana ( Krishna’s birth place) is unique where girls beat up guys with sticks – Lathmar Holi. We always used to have those riots in hostels, during college days and there were special tanks full of water to make sure everyone takes the colorful dip, drinks bhang and eats lot of sweets through the day. In my 6-7 years of “hostel holi” I hardly recall a single Holi night – by that time we used to generally pass out with all the drinks J Every holi celebration has its own specialty, though it is somewhat different and lot restrained in some of the South-Indian states.


However, Diwali – the festival of lights – cuts across all the states borders and truly brings India together as one country. The festival is predominated by colorful display of lights, bursting of crackers, cleanliness, sweets, lots of shopping, happiness. The festive spirit brings people of different communities closer, to celebrate the vibrant festival in the most blissful and lively way. Celebrated usually in the month of October or November, Diwali bears significance in the Hindu culture as well as among Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains. The legends connected to the festival are different for different religions. Different communities worship different GODs - such as worship of Goddess Lakshmi, worship of Lord Ganesha, worship of Ma Kali, worship of Lord Chitragupta and worship of Govardhan Parvat. The business community in India marks this as a start of new financial year and hence they start with new books of accounts on Diwali. But across all of them there is a single theme of having some serious fun, with lights, sweets and family / friends. That is the core fiber of Diwali which makes it most special and my favorite Indian festival. Just for one night, we tend to forget everything and everyone tries to defeat the darkness, sorrows and silence in their lives. The collective energy of more than one billion people presides over the nature’s cycle and for one day in the year; there is no night or quiet moment in India; no one is alone or left out in celebrations – its Diwali night!

Once again happy diwali everyone!!

Me - the Chef !

Today I am bored to death. Not much happening in office and at home I am all alone :-). The only voice other than me is that of the TV or the music, which is these days giving me more than wanted companionship. Suddenly I have lot of time at hand and not sure how to deal with it.
The festival season is on back home and everyone must be getting together, eating delicious food and sweets. I remember how we used to celebrate Diwali, when we were kids. Papa used to buy us bags full of crackers and there were so many visitors at home. The entire family used to get together for meals. The house was always full of people and most importantly, everyone used to get lots of sweet. Yes by now, you can tell I have a weakness for the sweet things :-) -- sorry can't help it.
This time around also all the family will again be together during Diwali, except me. Good news is my son has recovered well and is getting back to his normal naughty best. He is still on antibiotics for the stomach infection and thus wifey is keeping a close eye on him. I just spoke to him and he was so anxious to get back here and join his school, catch up with his friends and teachers. He was so inquisitive about his friends here and was asking me so many questions about couple of them I recently met. And before he hang up he said, he wants to be back here and resume his "class leader" position - wow !
I also did something special for myself today - I cooked !! Yes perhaps the 4th or 5th time in my living memory, I dared to cook an entire meal for myself. Almost every time I have attempted is when I am all alone and feel like doing something special. It was both to "kill" time and more so I am getting fed up with eating out for last 2-3 weeks. Also we eat all veggie food during this time of the year - no meats (really tough on me). This means my options outside are very limited.
It took me around 2 hours to cook the entire meal. Rice, Daal and Vegetable -- and must say, I was impressed with my cooking skills. I hope I will get more time and do it more often, it was nice experience. With my favorite numbers playing in the background, 2 hrs never felt like long. I did overestimate my appetite and hence I will have sufficient food for my dinner too. It kind of addressed a part of myself to be creative - I chose the dishes, went to market & got the ingredients, spices and proportions and was happy when it all came out good - all by myself.

Well, a lazy day but an interesting one as now I have a career option -- he he pushing it too far... good night.

Reflections

I have been staying alone for last few weeks, family is away and that leaves me with a lot of “free” time for myself.

After getting used to keep really busy with wife and my son, suddenly I am on my own – sometimes it is really hard. So essentially, I have lot of silence around me, except the TV / Music / conference calls. Initially it is a good break / welcome change as you have lot of time for yourself. But then it also gets dead boring at times, as you are not “geared” for free time. When they are around, I hardly sit back and reflect on my own. Now that’s what I have been doing most of the evenings.

Earlier this week, one of my cousin brothers, stopped by in the city and we met after almost 5 years. I was so excited to meet him after he called me around mid morning that I cleared up my afternoon schedule and rushed to pick him up. We used to spend lot of time together when we were growing up. He was the big brother and always bright in his studies, warm to everyone around him.

And after meeting him, I realized he is still basically the same person, same warmth in gestures, open minded and full of affection. I always used to think with time we all change, but meeting him I realized he has kept his original fabric intact – given the fact he has an extremely challenging work / personal life, this is really a great achievement. Hats off!

Back home, my son is not keeping well – which is always painful. We spoke few times over phone today and I tried my best to make him as comfortable as possible from here. He picked up on some of nicknames I create for him almost every time we speak and kept repeating them with a big smile though the day. My parent’s are obviously tensed and worried, they all were having a ball of time till now. I hope he will get well soon and back to his naughty best.

Our Identity – Who, where, what..

The very first question you ask yourself (or someone) when you meet someone / something for the first time – WHAT, WHO?
It’s a very basic human instinct towards some one or something unknown – we have a never-ending curiosity to find out the unknown. So who am I – isn’t that one of the first questions we should ask ourselves.
Believe me it is also one of the toughest questions to answer. A person is defined by so many attributes and their interactions, it is hard to answer it simply and get it right. Let me take a shot at it, keeping myself in the hot seat!

Lets get some of the material attributes right out of the way, before we start talking about the complex stuff.

So I am an India-born, Hindu, well educated, internationally work experienced, straight, blessed with great parents & supporting family, never been to jail (so far), love cricket, reading books, movie buff, love multiple cuisines, bad dancer, good friend, heavy social drinker, never smoked anything, bespectacled IT pro (so typical), glob trotter, music freak, live/die by the watch, never miss a commitment, funny but serious kind of a guy.

The word, which would have flashed your mind by now – Average! It pretty much defines almost all aspects of my life so far. I am neither so tall nor that short, just above average. Always had plenty to compare on either side of me, people worse off and better off.

When I was a student, I had my brilliant moments, but could have I done more – Absolutely!

When I started working, achieved a lot in a very less time, but could have done more – oh yes!

I am blessed with great family; we love / support each other always, could I do more – Anytime!

But then again, what is the upper limit for things like - success, speed, love, money, good health, knowledge, happiness ... So how do we measure one’s success / failure?

Is measurement important after all, as they say, it is the journey and not the goal, which matters (old cliché). Still we set goals everyday, go crazy after them and feel happy / sad towards the end of the journey based on how much we achieved.

So if it is all relative measurement, with the external world, then the key to happiness is “satisfaction”. Are you satisfied with what you have on your plate or you want to strive for more. As it is an endless pursuit, we can keep going on and on and still remain dissatisfied and dejected, because we keep comparing ourselves with external world.

I think, there is always & will always be someone more powerful, stronger, more successful, richer, happier, better looking, more knowledgeable than me in this big world.

So to identify who we are, we perhaps need to dig deeper inside and find the inner peace, which will keep the smile on the face even on the worst of the days.

Many times I have met people in very difficult situations and wondered, what keeps them ticking (when the world is falling apart around them) – it is their inner soul, inner happiness and satisfaction, which define who they are!

Shri

I am starting this blog, with an intention to document my daily random thoughts, actions and reflections. I would keep it as truthful as I am and would include people, places and events in as much details as I possibly can.
I was a daily diary writer till about the age of 15 or so. Thousands of pages capture my childhood and early growing days. Thereafter, the continuity broke and I kind of miss it in some corner of my heart.
So this is kind of a second beginning and I hope I will be able to keep up with this one, much better..