Daaru...

Well its end of yet another year, 2017. So many things happened in this year which I am not going to mention here but what I would like to mention is the special last day of the year, December 31st.

Most of the people celebrate the last day of the year with partying hard, enjoying great food, live shows, dance, music and most importantly with drinks. Few won't even do anything but just be in the home and watch TV, sleep. Let's not talk about them, but about those who drink. Drinking alcohol has become such a default activity on December 31st. Everyone would like to drink daaru and that's the party on new year night. If you don't drink daaru on 31st night, then you didn't have any party.

I am very much against daaru. I don't like drinking daaru at all. As I have known, daaru is very addictive and based on my personality, if I get addicted to something, it's very hard to get off. So I never prefer to even try out daaru. Since my childhood, while growing up, I have known/seen people who ruined their life because of daaru. I have also seen people who are so much addicted to it and continue to ruin their health, family, life knowing its all because of daaru but still unable to control but keep drinking. I pity those people.

As I grow up, got settled and started observing that most of even successful people, well-settled people also drink daaru. It is very common to drink daaru in high parties and corporate outings. It was prestige to drink and give company in office outings and get-togethers. I even observed in TV series, movies etc that they keep drinking daaru as though its nothing. Sometimes, even I get tempted to give a try but never dared.

People keep asking me, forcing me, suggest me to try one shot of daaru, nothing will happen but I strongly avoid it. When I am down with cold, I hear a very common dialogue, have RUM, it will kick off your cold in 5mins. But still, I never give up and refuse. I can proudly say that till now I have never ever tasted a single drop of daaru :-) People keep asking me the question, why don't you drink daaru? For all those, you might get answer by reading this blog (I hope)

After analyzing all the facts and understandings, one thing I figured out is people drink daaru as part of happiness, celebration and it may not be wrong as long it is under control. One or two pegs of daaru to celebrate some big great achievement is no harm. So I decided that I will also try out daaru when I want to celebrate some great achievement in my life. There is no harm in that as many people who I consider idol also drink daaru.

So I started to plan, what would be my greatest achievement in life. Initially, I thought, once sister gets married, it's a big achievement and I will drink. But it has been a year since she got married and till now haven't even touched daaru. Probably, then I thought, once I get married, I'll drink. But still, I am not sure if I will be dared enough to give a try and I am not considering my marriage as any great achievement at this point in time so as to celebrate it with a daaru :P

So finally, I have boiled down to the stage at which I will open up a bottle of champagne and drink on my own. The key word "on my own" is very important here because, before that, someone might force me to try a drink or perform some emotional blackmail to give a try and I might sip the daaru little bit (its not that easy as I will try to control myself 100% and avoid drinking but you never know). If such thing happens, then I won't be drinking on my pure will, it is like someone forcing.

According to me, my greatest achievement, which I consider sufficient enough to drink daaru and celebrate, would be when my kid (boy/girl, first/second doesn't matter) gets sufficient good education and starts earning on their own (be independent) --> "that moment" --> I have reserved for celebration with daaru with my own will (no one forcing me). I think its greatest moment and a big achievement of life for any parent (to see their child succeed and be independent).

So here it goes, until then, I am not going to touch daaru whatsoever. I know its lot of time for that moment to happen but who is in hurry to drink daaru, not me ;-) I see people drinking daaru for stupid reasons. He got a new bike, let's drink daaru. He found his missing key, let's drink daaru. His home is empty, let's drink daaru. I mean, really!!!!!!!! They just need a reason to drink daaru, that's all.

I am not saying or moral policing you to not drink but I am fed up with the question on why I don't drink. So I dedicated my last blog of this year 2017, which most of the people will be drinking daaru and celebrating on 31st night of 2017 to convey this answer. I know its kinda serious and not fun to tell when you are already drunk and asking me this question, "why don't you drink bro?" so better to write it on blog which I hope you will be reading without drinking daaru :-)

Folks, Happy New Year 2018.

Professional Looks

Soon to be updated...

To Be Updated

Yet to be updated. November 1, it will be updated before EOD.

Complicated

When I was a kid, I had a clear goal set in life that I must study well and score well for better future. I must avoid distractions, concentrate on studies in securing more marks. It was crystal clear and I followed it with all my strength and excelled in the education part of life but post-education life, there is another life, real life which awaits. That is too much complicated without any clear goals.

When I completed my engineering and started to work, even before I could complete one year in corporate professional life, this question started to hit me hard. Whats goal now ? I don’t have exams in company to get more marks, or study well. I just have to come to office, work, learn, meet friends/colleagues, rest for two days weekend, get salary after a month and cycle repeats. Initially, I had to spend most of the salary in closing all existing loans of my parents which use to give such a huge satisfaction but once that is done, I have no idea on how to spend the salary. I was bogged down with biggest question of my life, whats the new goal ?

I had an uncle, mother’s brother, who was an idol to me. He had answers to all my questions, he use to see the potential in me, use to ask puzzles to excite and train my brain. I asked him this question back then, whats the goal of life since now eduction is finished? He was silent. Even he couldn’t answer. I was astonished that finally I had a question for which he doesn’t have any answer. But still the question remained as a question only. No one could give me any answer to this.

Without parents to guide, life moved on, without any clear goals, just going with the flow. Several obstacles came in between, faced them, passed through them, learnt lessons and continued. But whats the goal of life ? Where is the life heading to? What am I suppose to do in my life? I was like that molted iron which will take the shape in whichever pattern its put into. Unknowing what I really want, just passing time as it appears.

When I use to see others (friends), they were clearing one after other milestones of life heading with some clear guidance in life towards some goal probably. But I seem to remain still. Friends bought new car, new flat, got married, having kids, helping society, following their passion like photography, music, traveling etc. While I feel, without clear goals, I’m stuck. I am still in 2011 where I asked this question out load and no one answered and I am still in search of answer.

When we were in school/college, life was quite simple. We use to have a clear goal and a detailed manual of student life. There use to be teachers who can help us navigate through life. But once education is finished, the life is too much complicated. Each one has their own goals and rules in life and start following it up. Several complex things like relationships, finance, society, religion becomes our subjects of life. Unlike engineering or medical or Law subjects, there are no books or clear things written on these topics.  These new life topics are crazy and too much complicated and depends upon each individual to deal with.

When you grow old, things start to clear up. There is nothing clear cut right or wrong, its all what you decide and choose to believe in. Life after eduction is grey. Few set of people believe in something and make it as their goal in life while others will be quite opposite of it but still lead their life as though that is correct. I hope, you get what I am talking about. It may be about relationships, religion, something satire in society, or political motive etc. It's all about your perception.

I have been tried to get moulded in many shapes but none I felt are comfortable. I don’t know which shape I am going to take but whatever shape I take, bottom line to ensure is, I must be happy. Happiness is what all matters at the end of the day. If you are unhappy, doesn’t matter how good you are as per society, religion, relationship, finance, how much you earn nothing matters, its all waste and not worth it. As long as you are happy, nothing matters.

Few lines in similar context borrowed from an answer from Quora to a question, "Whats the purpose of life?":- The only reality we know is the one we feel so the only purpose of life can be to “feel”. Feel happy, feel fulfilled. “feel” an unabashed desire to work towards what truly gives us a feeling of happiness and fulfillment. In a world where we are questioning our very existence, the only truth that matters is the one you choose to live.

Equation of Finance and Relationship

Mathematics is my favorite subject. It contains equation. As I grew up, I witnessed that there were several equations, even outside mathematics. The equation gives some sort of generalization of behavior between two distinct objects. In this blog, I would like to derive an equation between two objects which are finance and relationship.

I hope, everyone is aware of relationship term. It could be with your friend, cousin, colleague, neighbor, relatives, in-laws, brother, sister, parents etc. The word finance in this context is lending money, giving credit to others or anything where money is involved.

As we grow up and start earning, everyone will have to go through and deal with finances. You'll be getting money in your hand and of course it must be spent judicially. It needs to be secured for future too and there will be expenses in our day-to-day activities. All of it has to be neatly managed without wasting precious hard earned money. Few may not realize its importance when they first start earning but then later, based on mistakes, they learn the hard lesson.

Also, as we grow up and start earning on our own, our relationship with others changes. The way society looks at you differs compared to when you were studying (non-earning). In today's modern world, without being financially independent, one cannot be liberal and will be disrespected. If you want to be respected, be independent and take your own decisions by having your own opinions then you must be financially independent first, capable of earning on your own otherwise, its not at all possible. As long as someone is dependent on another for their financial needs, then its like living under burden.

Call me naive, but I have grown up watching family entertainer movies, where they try to express that relations are more valuable than money. These kind of films doesn't stress much upon how family is rich or poor, or always show rich peoples (Agarwal, Singhania, Chopra, etc) and relation between them. I believe thats how we are suppose to live in society. The society where money is out of equation between relationships.

But the harsh truth is, money is everywhere and is the base on which society is built. In all the relations, money gets in. How much ever, you try to stay away, but ultimately you will end up in dealing finances in the relationships. As I said, I believe in building relations where money is out of equation and try act like that, but few people seamlessly take advantage of it. Sometimes, I feel, do they even value the relationship at all. 

The equation which I want to draw over here is, the more close relationship it is, the more amount of money is involved. With your colleague, you might be dealing in finances of 100s to 1000s and with your neighbors probably in some 1000s to 5000s (if they are close). If you have a closed one, the money with which you trust him/her is almost equal to the trust you both share. If its your close friend, you might lend 5000 to 10000, but a relative which is not close to you then you might think twice to lend such an amount (also the other factor generally one considers is, will he repay back on time). Anyways, as and when the relation gets thicker, amount increases. With your parents, siblings, husband-wife, the amount will be dealt in lakhs (properties, cash, etc).

The point which I would like to make is, obviously, more the trust and close relationship, more the money gets involved. But most people tend to forget about the close relationship they share and concentrate on the huge money. Keep in mind, the more money got involved in the first place is because of your close relationship, which people often forget and spoil the relationship.

The equation is quite simple and I am not asking you to value only relationship or value only money but I suggest to always try to maintain proper balance between relationship and finance as you know the equation now. Its very crucial.

Perception Matters?

No one can deny that WhatsApp has become deeply integrated with our lifestyles. Most of us are in contact with our cousins, colleagues, friends etc through WhatsApp groups. These groups really help us in catching up on whats going on with one another in a jiffy. I too have several groups and one among them is our engineering college friend’s group.

As most of you might know, I enjoy writing (no matter how good or bad it is). I generally write a blog every month and try to at-least write minimum one Quora answer every week. Quite some time back, I attempted to write a Novel (part1 part2) but stopped abruptly. Now, I have been again taking interest to continue writing this Novel but unable to do so. Writing is a very hard and difficult process. The only one who goes through the phase knows it. That's why I really admire those who write well and consistently.

One fine day, in the WhatsApp group which I was mentioning earlier, one of my friend informed us that, he has written a Novel and published it on Amazon’s KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). It is a self-publishing platform for new upcoming authors to put out their novels on Kindle platform. He said, it needs some 2 months for review by Amazon Kindle team (they might reject also if not up to standards or in appropriate content etc) and make it available for the public to download by paying some 99 bucks. We (means remaining friends in the group) were all really excited. After further discussion, we came to know that, if it sells well then he can even earn money (some % is shared with Amazon) and the ownership/copyright will still be held by Amazon.

My friend shared the first page of his book on WhatsApp group which was a synopsis. It was fantastic. The novel was about Indian Politics, where the protagonist trying to get a particular capable leader of a party to become Prime Minister of democratic India. It was all about the journey of this protagonist to witness his dream come true. His dream being this lady becoming PM and what all goes behind the scene in its happening. We were all really looking forward to the release of the book and to further read this promising story which our friend intended to tell.

As I told, even I was re-attempting to continue writing my novel and listening to my friend, new hopes opened up for me. I came to know about this self-publishing platform, a friend who already went through the process who can help/guide and provide tips in writing my novel and making it publish. I got new ambitions for writing the novel and new admiration for my writer friend.

Every day, I started to continue writing my half baked novel with the motivation that one of my friend (whom I know very well) did it. If he can do, I can also do it. I prepared the over all story line for my novel, sketched each character which I am going to introduce, their name, age, habits and what role do they play in the story. I prepared a chart in full enthusiasm.  Then I started to write. Sometimes I use to get blocked, couldn’t even write a single word. Based on what my friend wrote about Indian politics and complex storyline of multiple layered characters, I started to think, what a stupid story am I writing. Some silly romantic story which is cliched. There is nothing innovative in this. I am just clubbing all romantic stories I have watched in film/tv series and adding some of my own experience about day-to-day activities of IT industry and cooking up some silly story.

When I was in such blockage stage, I used to pinged him on WhatsApp and ask, did he also face similar blockage while writing his novel, how did he overcome it, etc. He used to give me some tips and it would re-motivate me and I would continue writing whatever crap I was writing. After some time, what I realized is, it doesn’t matter how bad I am writing but what matters is completing the novel which I started. I use to console myself, this is not the only novel I am going to write but this is just beginning. There is no rule that, the first novel to be the best novel. The aim is to complete the story which I am planning to tell. With these kinds of motivation which I got from my friend who wrote a novel, I continued writing my novel whenever I got some time.

Day by day passed and after a month of so, he shared the cover page of his Novel titled “Ten Lives of Attainment”. It was looking very promising. He said he purchased the cover photo so that he won't end up in copyright claim later. I was thinking, how serious is this guy about his novel while I am lazily typing some nonsense every day. When asked, he told, it took around a year to complete this novel and he has plan and story for next 2 novels which he will write only if this first one gets some appreciation and success. I was totally flat and had become a fan of this guy! Such a dedication! Wow !

Another friend in the group of this was counting down the days of the release of this book. He was asking questions like, how do we buy this book, which app to install on mobile to read the novel etc. Finally, the D-Day arrived. The date of release of his novel on Kindle store. There was no response from the author friend. A day or two passed by but no response. I was getting skeptical whether poor fellow’s book got rejected by Amazon's review team due to their high standards and may be that's why he is not replying back? We waited for his response.

Suddenly he responded back mentioning that, after 2 days of release, his book is a big hit and he earned quite a sum of money. After that, he even directly shared the PDF version of his book in WhatsApp group itself. It was unbelievable and we all were happy and eager to read his novel. I was planning to spend the weekend to read this novel in one go and learn how he has written and get some knowledge on writing styles etc.

When I opened the pdf file of his novel, it was only of 4 pages, with 3 pages for build up and on the last page, it was something like “April fool” and its a prank. There is no novel. It was all a lie all along. A perfect real life prank on WhatsApp group. I was totally shocked, unbelievable. My brain was not able to synthesize that it's a prank. I still was believing that there is a real novel written by him which I will read and him telling there is no novel might be a prank. That day, it was really hard for me to digest this news.

After realizing the reality of no novel about Indian politics by my dear friend, I was shattered and lost all motivation which I had gained in past two months for writing my novel. I was feeling so stupid whenever I use to sit for writing my novel. Till date, I couldn’t write a single word on my novel after getting played by prank BUT while in past two months I wrote some three and half chapters of my novel just because I was under some false perception. So what should I make out of it ? Does having a perception really matters ? Doesn’t matter even if its a false perception, but having that perception of a friend completed a novel helped me writing my own novel.

We all will be having such various kind of perceptions in our mind in day to day lives and will be acting under such perceptions. Sometimes having a perception and acting based on it is really good as long it helps you. That doesn’t mean all perceptions are right and do whatever you want. All I am saying is even if its false perception or wrong perception doesn’t matter as long as it helps you. If you try to uncover the perception, perhaps it might be incorrect and you might loose whatever was helping you. So better to be under some imaginative perception and act accordingly as long it is helping you.

Well in my case, I am unable to continue writing my blog after I discovered that my perception was totally wrong. But thats fine, now after writing this blog, I will get back the old perception that indeed my friend is a great author, he wrote an excellent novel. If he can do it, why can’t I ? Let me try continue writing my novel with this perception (which is obviously FALSE) and take its advantage as it certainly helps me in completing my novel. PROBABLY !!! :)

The Kitchen

Is there any house which doesn't have a kitchen ? I highly doubt it. Although, we won't talk much about this unique and essential room of every house but it is certainly an important and critical part of house. This is the place where the source of energy of people residing in house is generated. Kitchen is the place from which, all the raw materials are taken as input and provides an output of delicious eatable items. The entire process happens in this room, kitchen.

I often compare the Kitchen room to an industry or a factory. Similar to an industry/factory, kitchen also needs to be maintained. There are so many degradable items inside kitchen that they all need to be properly taken care of; otherwise might end up in mess with ants and cockroaches all around if kept more that their expiry time. Similar to as an industry input raw materials, kitchen also needs several raw material from turmeric powder, curd, oil, vegetables, sugar, rice, flour etc and the list goes on and on. These all items have to be properly arranged in their unique places (few things cannot be mixed or kept near other things as they get spoiled). At regular intervals, the quantity of these items need to be monitored and should be re-filled accordingly.

Another important material of kitchen are utensils. There are wide variety of utensils which serve various purpose during cooking. There are few essential utensils while others are luxury to own. Each utensil complements the other in the process of cooking. Time to time, these utensils have to be cleaned after usage else it may lead to untidiness inside the kitchen. Refrigerator has become the new entry and a must have item in every modern kitchen of contemporary world. It helps the cook in several ways by storing perishable food items and extending their lives for few more days.

A factory cannot be run by an individual as it is a complex entity similarly its very hard to cleanly maintain the kitchen by an individual. But still there are so called “housewives” who single handedly maintain the kitchen. Trust me, maintaining a clean kitchen is not an easy task. If you don’t believe me, take a challenge and own responsibility of maintaining the kitchen for 2 weeks to realize. It has its very own complexities and requires a different kind of skill and intelligence which housewives posses. We casually ignore the effort of mother, wife, daughter, sister or even hired cook who prepares food for us and serve it deliciously by hiding all the internal effort spent on preparing it. Its not just preparing, there is aftermath also in cleaning and maintaining it back. Don't get me started on Hygiene part.

While preparing for food in Kitchen, one needs to be equipped with lot of techniques on managing the available resource to its best use. For example, what can be replaced with what item when you fall short of an item, how many people food are you going to cook and how much hungry they might be, what to do if food is over estimated, how to handle when it is under estimated, how much time is it going to take to cook to ensure food is served hot etc etc. Such wisdom doesn’t solemnly appears to anyone. It needs lot of patience, effort, experience, failures, knowledge etc to gain tidings about kitchen entity.

Generally when you visit someone’s house, you see their hall where you sit and talk and if you are quite close to them, probably they might show you their living room, bedroom, balcony etc but its very rare that someone takes you to their kitchen also and show it unless you are very special or closed one or a family member. According to me, don’t be impressed on how well they maintain their living room or bed room but based on how clean and organized have they maintained their Kitchen. This is the place where things get real. If possible, peek into their refrigerator to understand them better.

At last, what I would like to say in conclusion is, maintaining and organizing kitchen is indeed a challenging task which may look quite simple from outside but its certainly not. When someone spends most of their life time in kitchen, don’t think they are useless or undexterous but infact they have immense experience of unique skill set which is quite forgotten and heavily underrated. So next time, when you meet any housewife, please remember they are multi talented people and honor them by recognizing their craft and competence. There are few working professionals who are exceptional in managing both office and kitchen, I salute them too. Going forward, I wish both genders are taught basics of handling kitchen in their childhood for betterment of hygiene and it enables them to master yet another unique skill set.

Sukku Sir

I think, it was around PUC 1st year final examination time frame when my mother started to plan and enquire about my 2nd PUC tuition/coaching classes as PUC2 is very crucial and the deciding factor for better future. Few of her colleague’s children had got good results and praised about a coaching institution in Malmaddi area. The institute didn’t had any specific name, but was referred with the name of sir who undertook the institution as “Suresh Kulkarni” aka in short “Sukku”.

The PUC2 was very competitive examination during that time (and still it is). You generally dream of either becoming a bright engineer or brilliant doctor going forward and all that stands between you and your dream is to get excellent marks in PUC2. It needs right guidance, hard work, avoiding distractions and clear mind. After my SSLC, while choosing either Biology or Statistics as my fourth subject apart from Physics, Chemistry and Maths, I choose Statistics and it was purely based on thickness of the book! Funny choices (I had no idea what it signifies, but based on number of pages in books decided to go with Statistics). Hence becoming doctor was out of question for me and had to only concentrate on engineering, in particular Mathematics. (Physics, Chemistry, Maths marks were considered for Engineering while Physics, Chemistry, Biology marks were considered for Medical).

One afternoon, my father took me to Sukku tuition for getting admission. I took the form and filled up application and without giving any choice for me, my father paid the advance money and finalized this sukku class. I was quite a bit surprised, he didn’t even ask me, if i want to study here, or didn’t even consider any other coaching classes. He registered me for 2 months vacation class which starts in the morning 7AM till 1PM so that I woke up early to attend classes daily and I hated waking up early.

The PUC1 exams ended and the vacation classes begun. I use to take my old blue colored LadyBird cycle (yes, it was ladies cycle (old) as couldn’t afford a new boys cycle that time) and attended sukku classes. The first day, first class was of Physics by Aeri sir and I still remember, we were taught about static electric charges. I use to sit in the second bench by squeezing with other students as room was small and students were plenty. It was morning “only boys” class. The other batch with boys+girls was in another building which I assume was spacious to sit with enough space between each other.

Next class was of Chemistry, by Baddi sir. He was quite old and use to wear heavy powder, scent/perfume. I don’t remember what he taught in the first class. After these two classes, there use to be breakfast break for 30mins before Mathematics class. During break, i heard fellow students talking about Aeri sir, Baddi sir etc and I had no idea who teaches what here while other knew, planned and joined this class. Post breakfast, I came and sat for my all time favorite subject, Mathematics. A sir came inside, he was short, fully dressed in white color with a mouth which chewed tobacco a lot and he was none other than sukku sir. I first saw, met, attended him in this class.

While other two lecturers taught very well of their respective subject but sukku sir was different. Apart from teaching brilliantly about all those differentiation, integration complex equations of mathematics, he use to know the heart beats of youth. He had good hold on what students think, behave during this age. He use to crack jokes in the class while imparting good habits/practices essential for PUC2. Apart from taking maths class, he also teaches on how to study, how to manage time, how to live student life during this crucial PUC2. I was quite impressed by him from his very first appearance.

I use to take 12/- from mother every day to eat tatte idli in nearby hotel during breakfast (which I love it till today) and eagerly use to rush back to class hoping not to miss even a single minute of sukku class post break. He was available only for limited amount of time for students and the interactions with him were limited to what was taught in class. For doubts and clarifications, there was another sir named, Ningappa sitting in library and he use to resolve maths doubts while sukku use to only teach in class. I took every word which came out of sukku sir’s mouth in the class seriously and did exactly what he use to say. He use to tell that, this is teenage and you will be facing with lot of distractions around you, TV being major one along with smoking, drinking, impressing girls, tobacco etc. Stay far-far way from all these for better results.

During that period of time, sukku had become like a God for me. As said, every word, every order of him was followed in blood by me. There use to be distractions when fellow last bench students use to insult and talk lightly of Sukku and I use to over hear them. Sukku himself eats lots of tobacco but preaches us to not eat, he always watches TV, he is like that, he is like this, all in negative way. I use to get angry and curse them you won’t score well :P Even with all these negative thoughts around, I never reduced my devotion towards Sukku.

After finishing vacation classes, he gave a last speech in the last class to never let enthusiasm loose off and keep the constant phase of study throughout the year till examination. After that, I never saw sukku sir for a while. Regular college started, revision, study, etc went off as per sukku.

During mid-term of PUC2, I was attending some class in Hindi Prachar Sabha where several reputed professors from different colleges/coaching class come and teach as a guest lecturer about CET exam to poor, financially backward people. There was one age old Physics professor named Patil (heavy chain smoker) who also took few classes. Similarly sukku sir was also invited to take few class over there. I saw him almost after 6months in Hindi Prachar Sabha taking maths class. The memorable moment for me was, when sukku sir saw Patil sir in the corridor and without caring who is watching or not, sukku sir out of respect, lay flat on floor to namaskar Patil sir. Such a famous, reputed sukku sir lying down on dirty floor without caring about his white dress was marvelous. Age old patil sir’s student was sukku sir back in days and this is how one must respect their guru. All students gathered around in awe and circled watching these two legendaries meet.

After extensive hard work and 80% of spending time in studies and remaining 20% in day-to-day essentials, the result was over-whelming and never expected one (~97% in PCM). All this credit goes to none other than white dressed, short man named “sukku”.

Post result, I went to meet Sukku sir home along with my father for distributing sweets (Dharwad Pheda). That was the first time, I met him outside class, personally. I handed him over the sweets and told about my results. He was happy and congratulated. My father told, its all because of your classes and God’s grace but sukku argued, “its because of your son’s hard work (not God’s grace or my class). Several people attended my class but only few can score 95%+”. So he humbly withdrew his stake and a hot argument happened between my father and sukku about God’s grace playing a part in my scoring or not. I was feeling embarrassed and awkward listening to discussion without knowing whose side to take (father’s or sukku’s). So that was the last time I met sukku sir. He wished me all the best for future and I continued further in my life with Engineering, Job etc while he stopped running the famous sukku class after few years.

Yesterday, I attended my friend’s wedding. Surprisingly, one of my friend pointed out at stage and said sukku sir. There he was, my God during PUC2, with white shirt (although not white pant as he use to wear during classes), I saw him, after around 12 years. My heart was full of joy, just like the first time I saw him in the class. Myself and friend (who also attended sukku) waited to meet him. When we met him, I was getting a feeling to dive in and do namaskar just the way, sukku did by seeing Patil sir in Hindi Prachar Sabha but I controlled my feelings. Obviously, he couldn’t recognize us but he was humble enough to say, I recognize face but every year I see 600 students and its difficult to remember names. We re-introduced ourselves, he asked where are we working now, he said little bit about his children doing well in studies and he is going to re-start coaching from next year after gap of 5 years. It was proud meeting him in surprise and I had to take a pic. His wife helped in clicking this below pic.

The lesson I learnt and want to give away to students is, their dharma is to respect their guru to 100% for betterment of their education, life etc. Those students who doesn’t respect their guru’s cannot succeed in life. If I remember, how I was back in 2005 and what I have become in 2017, the credit goes to the devotion I payed to guru’s (not just sukku but whoever taught me during my education and sukku is one special hero among several others).

Obscure Mystery - Part 2

It is better to read Part 1 before reading further. So what do you think about the theory of haunted house ? Have you ever experienced such house in real life? Coming back to the one whom I know, to continue his story. After spending that dreadful last night in the house, he shifted to a small room in a 3 sharing PG with random guys so that he is not all alone. He had lost hopes in future, completely lost on how to lead his life. All because of this haunted house!

But later on, as days passed, he started to analyze the incidents happened in his life during past six months. His father was on medication from past 3 years and by now it wasn’t holding up leading him to pass away. Probably it might have nothing to do with house. Then what about his grand father ? He came to know that, just 15 days back, his grand father had a heart attack and was admitted in hospital for 4 days and just after 10 days of discharge he travelled 430Kms to visit the house. Probably the journey was too much for him leading to heart attack. This also has nothing to do with house.

Coming back to his mother’s car accident, well the car was driven by his uncle who recently purchased new car and was very naive to driving. He was just comfortable driving inside city and for first time planned to drive a long route on highway. By getting distracted for a moment while driving on highway could make disastrous effect. Probably, this incident may also be not related to the house. So he was getting clarity on the illogical concept of somethings happening due to haunted house.

Then he remembered about his neighbors, who exchanged his house from 1BHK to 2BHK as wife was pregnant and then child got miscarried. He started to wonder, what could be that reason! Could that be due to haunted house?! After quite some period of time, he came to know that those couple already had 2 mis-carriage in past and this was their third child and hence they were taking extra precaution of staying in ground floor home, nearby to hospital etc but alas third time also it was same fate. Hence it can be concluded that house was no way related to any of these incidents. But again, there was some information about house was stopped during construction due to owner’s wife death etc. So still he is still under confusion on the mystery since he couldn’t gather much information on that end.

As far as I know, he even tried to experiment out by visiting the house (like a hero in a film) after an year but was too scared to do that. He was just getting on his feet after traumatized year of loosing all his loved ones and going near to that house may not be a good idea. Although he was convinced that house has nothing to do with any of the incidents but who knows if its indeed related? He genuinely wanted to experiment out as a typical hero in any Bollywood film would do during the climax to resolve the mystery around the house but this wasn’t a film. He was scared that his one such stupid move could take another life while experimenting. Although it sounds so much silly and illogical and straight stupid on how can a house be responsible for such incidents but to prove that he need to visit the house once again (just pass near by to it or go close to its gate) but after all that has happened in his life, his been through, he was not ready to take the risk at this matter. Till to this day, he never ever step foot on the road where that house is situated and stayed as far way as possible. And look, this has got him to be safe and no critical bad things happened in his life.

Now what to believe? Is the house really haunted or its just plain stupidity? If you were in his position, will you take the risk of figuring out by re-visiting that house ? If I were him, I would just stay far away from that house minding my own business and forget about it. Although I believe that house has nothing to do with incidents but why to take such a heavy risk in trying to figure out (even after knowing what it costed him in the past). What will I get by figuring it out, nothing, isn’t it? So let the mystery about the house be Obscure as it is.

Obscure Mystery - Part 1

I am sure, you must have encountered a film about haunted house, where ghosts reside and bunch of people visit that house to figure out the mystery and end up dying in the process. Or somehow, protagonist survive the super natural and escape from house or try and understand the past story of ghost and help to take revenge. These kind of stories are regular in horror films but not pleasant in real life. One, who I know very well, also faced a haunted house in real life.

After getting placed into a MNC post engineering, he was very proud and happy as he had started to earn on his own. His family had financially struggled for long time and finally there was a ray of hope and dreams about bright future. He used to stay in a small room for nearly an year since started working then as next step, his father decided to rent a 1BHK house so that occasionally family can visit from native to the big city.

His father visited city to finalize the house, meet owner, arrange the huge advance money etc during the month of January 2011. It was all good, the 1BHK ground floor was pretty good with semi furnished wardrobe and modern kitchen, which his parents were dreamt of living one day. The house was just perfect for small family. It was almost newly built and he was the first one to move-in since its construction.

In the month of February, due to illness, his father passed away. It was very sad and doctors were already given up. Due to rituals of his father, obviously he couldn’t stay in the house which was newly rented for couple of weeks. Around the beginning of March, the lives were bit normal and he was back to work and continued staying in the house for another one month.

In April, his grandfather, grand mother, aunt etc wanted to visit his new house which was recently rented in the city. They were all really excited of traveling 430Kms far away with a hectic journey to just visit this new house. He was really very happy about the visit. It was a 3 days long weekend, as Friday was holiday due to “Good Friday” and he had planned so many things to do for next 3 days while they were in town.

He woke up early (which was very difficult task for him) and went eagerly to receive them from railway station on Good Friday morning. He managed to book economical taxi to accommodate everyone and bought them to his new rented home. They were all very happy when they saw the house, especially his grand father. Since childhood, he idolized his grand father and could see the pride in his eyes. Soon after couple of hours staying inside the house, his grandfather's heart-beat started to slow down.

Unknown of handling such critical conditions (as his father use to take care of such things) and lost in big money/business driven city, he was helpless and clueless on what to do. He was shocked and terrified but still went to all nearby doctor houses, clinics, hospitals but none were helpful. Somehow, he managed to get an ambulance from a nearby private hospital and managed to get his grand father till the doors of hospital but alas, doctor declared that his grandfather is no more at the entry without even admitting inside.

Such a dilemma, shattered dreams, clueless on what to do next, he stood there alone while the house was unlocked and everyone was at hospital. An ambulance was arranged to native and entire so called “Good Friday” went in the ambulance crying on realizing what just happened.

Again, after such a hard month of April, he was back to “this” house and resumed going to MNC for his “job”. Things were getting back to normal slowly while he started to dream and hope for next steps. His mother was working in a govt office and due to all this happening around, she decided to come settle down with her son by taking a transfer of work to the city. He was utmost happy that, he could finally stay with his mother and lead a simple comfortable life after knowing how much she had struggled to bring him up to this level in challenging conditions.

In the month of May, a married couple rented the 2BHK house which was on first floor while this guy’s 1BHK was in ground floor. Till now, the first floor was lying empty. He was looking forward for the new neighbors as he was bored of staying alone in this huge bungalow.

One day in May month, the new neighbor told him that, since his wife is pregnant and couldn’t climb first floor, he requested to swap the houses for same rent for next 4-5 months. This guy was very happy knowing, he could reside in bigger house 2BHK with his mother when she comes in June and that too at the price of 1BHK only.

May month went smooth in new bigger 2BHK house and he even got neighbors to smile at daily on the ground floor while passing by. Everything was so beautifully going. One typical day, just like any other day, he was in office. Around post lunch, when he was in a training/meeting, he got a phone call that his mother passed away in a car accident !

He went to his native for rituals, far away from this rented house. When looking back on all the incidents happened, people around him started to co-relate that this bad thing happening in his life for past 6 months is all due to “this house”. January moved into house, February father passed away, March was fine and in April, his grand-father passed away. May was good while June, his mother passed away. He couldn’t believe on how could all this be related to a house? That’s illogical.

However, he got a call from a known person from city informing him that his neighbor have left the 1BHK ground floor and he must move back from 2BHK to 1BHK when he returns back to city. He casually asked, why did they move, the answer was that their child was miscarried! After hearing this, he further gathered more information that, this house was stopped in-between during construction around 10 years back because the owner’s wife had died. Later, in 2009 or so, the construction of this house was resumed and got completed recently.

After hearing all this, he started to believe that this is infact the haunted house and could be the reason for all these things. He immediately called owner informing, he will be vacating the house next day as soon as he visits city. He came in around afternoon to house and couldn’t shift on the same day as it was late. He had to spend one night in the house all alone with all these scary thoughts in his mind before he could get rid of it.

That ONE NIGHT, without even those neighbors, all alone in the house was quite scary for him remembering all that happened. He had lost all his closed one’s who actually cared about him to inform and suggest to avoid staying alone in the house. But somehow, he managed to spend the night all alone by staying-up till 3AM in the night remembering all the old times, how unexpected life is, how future would look like, and lot more such things until his mind/eyes gave up and fall asleep.

This is not a film story but something which happened in real life. As I said, its not pleasant when happens in real life. Only good to watch in Bollywood films. Now the real question is - whether all these things happened are due to this haunted house ?

Best Friend

During last year Christmas time frame, out of blue, someone suddenly out of context, popped up a question and asked me, "Who is your Best Friend?". I was speechless. I couldn't answer. I genuinely parsed through almost all my friends in my head but couldn't pick any one as my best friend. I was aghast. The one who asked question was surprised and laughed that I don't have an answer! That moment, that conversation passed by, but the question kept running in my head somewhere in background for so many days seeking for an answer. The reason for not figuring out the answer is my lack of understanding of question. So I spent several hours analyzing who is a friend. And then lets figure out, who is best among them.

To define, who is a friend, there is no simple definition. There are several definitions. Also friend, is mutual thing and there are various kinds of friends viz school friend, college friend, friend in neighborhood, friend at office etc and these days, new kind called facebook friends also has evolved.

According to my understanding, I would like to define friend or the ingredients/stages associated to a friend in somewhat in this fashion. At the very fundamentalism, a friend is someone who recognizes you. If a person doesn't even recognize you, then he cannot be considered as a friend. Next obvious thing is that you both need to talk. Without talking, there cannot be friendship. Once you start talking, then comes the sharing, understanding etc. After this, there will be wishing good for each other since you now share information and understand each other. Post this comes the crucial ingredient, which is caring. It is significant part of any major friendship. Finally, at its peak, you both start encouraging, criticizing, laugh, cry, hate, obsess, fight, patch-up etc.

As you can see, there are several stages of friendship in a friend. Few friends are just at stage 1 where you both just recognize each other while few friends might be at stage 3 of sharing, understanding etc. A so called friend can be at a different stage of friendship. There are again sub-stages in these friendships, like what kind of information do you share with each other and what you don't share. Do you only talk about happy and good news or also share bad/sad news. As I said, its very complicated.

To put it simple, there will be wall with each of our friends. Depending upon the stage and sub-stage, the thickness of wall varies. Stage 1 will have thickest wall and as one moves to the next stage, the thickness reduces. It is hard to find a friend without any walls. A bonafide friend with absolutely invisible wall is your self consciousness.

Now coming back to the question, best friend should be one who has a wall which is as thin as possible. i.e., with whom you can share everything and anything, who understands every aspects of you, criticize when wrong, always wishes best for you, remembers, respects you. After  analyzing so much about best friend, i still couldn't figure out who is my best friend.

The reason for still not figuring out best friend is probably because there is no one. For example, consider just sharing aspect. For me, there are different friends to share different topics. One friend with topic X wouldn't have any clue about topic Y which I share with another friend. I talk, share about films, tv series, Bollywood etc with few friends immensely. They know how crazy I am. But there are other friends in office, with whom I share about work. They have no idea about my crazy part wrt films. There are few friends, who know my personal side and few friends have absolutely whatsoever, no idea about my personal life. School friends know different version of me while college friends recognize me in a different version. There are cousins, brother, sister who might have known me from long time, but even with them I project a different version of myself. With so much variations of my own version with several friends, how can I pick one friend, who is BEST. All I can do is to pick someone who overlaps with almost all of my versions, but other than myself there is no one.

After my SSLC, it was carved in my mind to not make any friends in college (long story, may be another blog) and I seem to think that, it could be the reason for my split versions of friendship probably. I am not sure, but certainly I cannot name any one person as my best friend, but the closest answer I can think of is, multiple friends of mine make my BEST FRIEND.

I know, best friends change through times (at school, college, etc) as we grow up but I have witnessed people coming up with one name (or 2, max 3 names) as soon as someone asks, who is your best friend. But for me, its not a single digit. I wonder, am i the only one like dyslexia in TZP or it is common with many people who doesn't have best friend.

As departing thoughts, I think, for married ones, by default and obviously, your better half (husband/wife) is the best friend. As they discuss almost everything under the sky, know about each other insanely well and for God's sake, they share their life together! In that sense, I am yet to meet my so called "Best Friend" ;)

Kick Start with Korea Trip

Well, this new year 2017 is kick started with Korea trip for supporting our customer. The stay was hardly 11 days but these were some really memorable days. I experienced several new horizons during this stay from Jan 9th to Jan 20th.

Just before 2 days of travel, while I was busy managing sister's wedding reception at Dharwad, my travel to Korea was planned and confirmed. The tickets were emailed. It felt like a reward for successfully completing the reception and its time to go celebrate. Once I was back to Bangalore, I realized, we have some serious issues lined up to be fixed in Korea and it may not be as easy I had thought. Nevertheless, the flight tickets were from Bangalore to Mumbai and then Mumbai to Seoul. While returning, it was Seoul to Delhi and Delhi to Bangalore. Both had 2 hours transfer time. I was excited to visit Mumbai and Delhi International terminals for the first time.

While leaving, I was a lone traveler. Due to unavailability of terminal in Mumbai, my flight was landed to some older airport which was around 45 mins far away from the new one. Almost an hour went in reaching back from old to new airport by bus. The Mumbai airport was really beautiful. Before I could enjoy the beauty, I was reminded that I was already running out of time for international transfer. With hardly one hour left, the queue in Mumbai airport for immigration was unbelievable. People were already in lengthy queue whose flight were after 3-4 hours and I hardly had my flight in just one hour. Patiently, I stood in long queue hoping, it could be moving fast and all would end up well. But, even after 40 mins, line had hardly moved. While standing in queue for 40 mins, I chit-chatted with 2-3 co-passengers standing in queue. We all were complaining on bad management of Mumbai Airport authority. There was only one common entrance for all international travelers. I was astonished thinking, the people whom I met for few mins now will be in different continents by tomorrow same time. One was travelling to US, another to Australia and one more to London. It was nice conversing with these people whom I will never ever meet in my life once again.

The US guy suggested me to try out to move ahead of queue and talk to officials about fast track entry as my flight was about to leave in 20 mins. I tried and struggled and with lot of difficulties, somehow managed to finish immigration,security,customs and ran towards the Gate.The last call of boarding was happening when I reached the Gate and boarded my flight with heavy breathing. I cannot explain all the difficulties faced but just to establish, the first time experience of Mumbai airport just didn't go all well for me. It will never be forgotten.

Generally I use to get severe pain in my ears during flight journey, especially during landing when air pressure begins to drop drastically. But this time, as it was my 2nd time international travel, I didn't face much problem with ears like first time. Looks like, with frequent travels, our ears get used to air pressure dynamics. I landed at Inchon airport, very huge, well maintained spacious airport, I finished all my formalities and took a local sim. I was told that its very cold in Korea and better to get winter wears. When I was buying sim card, I never felt any cold and looking outside, it was quite sunny as time was around 2:30 PM. I thought probably, its afternoon, hence no cold and during night, it might get cold. On this thought, I stepped outside and a rush of cold chilled wind hit my body as though I entered a large refrigerator. Damn, it was cold at 2:30 PM. Within few mins, my exposed hand started to get numb due to freeze. I am unable to operate mobile phone. It was pretty much cold. After sitting into the Limousine bus (which was quite luxurious compared to our regular Airport Vajra buses), I checked current temperature and it was just 1 degree and prediction for night was -5 !!!

The K-Hotel where I went and checked-in was quite near to office (almost 5 mins walk). After having dinner in an Indian Restaurant named Ganga at Gangnam Station (yes, the famous Gangnam style song place), walked to office at 9:30 PM casually where colleagues were still working. I finally met & saw faces of the people with whom I was working & talking through email from past one and half year. It was very warm meeting them. The customer reported issues were there and eventually closed but lets not talk about that. Well, its just routine work. BTW, it was bit hard to get used to time difference also (+3:30 mins to IST)

One of the most exciting part of my 11 day journey was exploring various Indian restaurants by travelling through metro. The country is very well developed and has good digital footprint which enables to easily navigate throughout the city. My favorite Indian restaurants that I visited in excellent to ok-ish order list are Chakra, LunaAsia, Jyothi, Dal, Ganga, Baba.

Over the weekend, I went with Indian colleague to Seoul N tower. We had to travel by cable car as to reach top of the tower from where city visuals where astonishingly awesome. It was like, all buildings are placed in neat order like matchboxes. Also there was a toy museum of superheros. I loved it and had good time over there.

One day before I left Korea, we 3 Indian colleagues went for a short outing at Lotteworld. This place was so huge, MY GOD. It had both indoor and outdoor rides,games & various other attractions. The latest attractions were French Revolution 2 VR, Gyro drop & air-venture. We couldn't try the last one but other two were scary and adventurous. There were several other (Jungle adventure, Sinbad adventure, Train ride across Lotteworld, Disney land, Ice skating etc) which we tried but most of them were missed due to lack of time. All in all, Lotteworld visit was very memorable evening and a must visit place in Seoul.

On the last day at office, I gave an hour KT to 20+ colleagues over there and they liked it very much and appreciated by clapping at the end of ppt. I felt so glad by there humble gesture. Finally, we went for a good-bye dinner. We took them to try out Indian food at "Baba Indian restaurant". We had some nice wide variety of topics to discuss on dinner table ranging from social, cultural, technical, military, economics, history etc. It was very pleasant time spent at dinner.

It was very emotional moment for me during check-out of The K-Hotel. I was feeling to stay and spend some more time.

On the day of travelling back, it had heavily snowed. BTW, it was my first time witnessing snow and snowfall. I had only seen it on screen, never felt it. It was really cool. Of-course due to snowfall, the Korea to Delhi flight was delayed by 2 hours. The connecting flight from Delhi to Bangalore had just 2 hours gap which was taken by this delay so it was obvious that Bangalore flight will be missed. When landed at Delhi airport, few guys from Spicejet/Korean airways were waiting for 5 of the passengers who had missed connecting flight to arrange for alternatives.

There was no proper planning and next flight tickets booked and had to spend the entire night in Delhi Airport Lounge. Although, delhi airport is really "the best" according to me, but we were stuck over there with no food, no rest and no idea about next flight. This was even more worse experience I faced than in Mumbai. Both Mumbai & Delhi are great airports but I had miserable experience in both during my first visit. Anyways, around 1AM, they managed to get Air India tickets to Delhi 6:10AM flight.

The co-passengers were so biased towards Air India complaining it just because it was from Govt of India. I felt were bad about it. As far as i experienced, it was better than SpieceJet. The Air India domestic flight was huge like international (unlike compact spicejet or any other). The breakfast given felt so desi after not eating proper desi food for so long. It had Idly, sambar, chatni, upma, bun, butter , jam, coffee. I loved the air india travel. Next time when someone has prejudice opinion of Air India, ask them to try it once with rational opinion.

Finally, landed Namma Bangalore airport by 9AM and took uber back to home. It was crazy traffic even on Satruday morning. Even last time and this time, my thoughts after returning to India will be same. When will India improve? And my answer is definitely not in this generation.

Anyways, it was certainly a memorable trip to Korea and would like to re-visit some time again. The real pain of travelling comes post travel, when we have to submit all the bills for reimbursement. In closing, the new year kicked off great with memorable Korea trip.

PS: I trimmed this blog to not make it much lengthy. I missed so many of my thoughts during this travel. Anyways, thank you for reading till the end :)

PS2: People ask, North Korea or South Korea, I mean who on earth with sane mind would visit North Korea ? Its like asking, do you like visiting India or Pakistan given a chance ?

My second favorite Indian Restaurant in Seoul

Myself and colleague at N Seoul Tower

Top view from Seoul Tower. See how they look like matchboxes

Super hero museum - The Hulk

Iron Man

Lotte World :)

The new ride - French Revolution2 VR (waited 2 hours to ride this) 

The K-Hotel. Took snap just before checking out room

The snow fall on the day of departure !

We 3 on last day in subway before saying Good Bye to Seoul