What an irony

This sure is my favorite irony in recent times. This is a real life incident. The above statement in the picture is really simple and makes loads of meaning. I had never embraced so much of solitude at workplace until the time when two of my team mates left and I was left with no one to talk to or interact during office hours.

Though my team at work place was replenished with 3 new people, I had fully seen what solitude can do and chose silence over unnecessary yapping at workplace. Loads of things have happened since then. Recently I shared this picture with another person and told that person, what silence, solitude and being alone and thinking can do, how much it helps.

And irony is that person got so much impressed with this idea of solitude and silence that, the person stopped speaking to me also.

I somehow made an effort to understand why that person is not responding to which the reply was precise - "You showed (told) me what silence can do, now I don't want to talk to anyone, including you too and rather remain silent.!"

Such is life. In a way, I'm happy, in a world where noisy people are dominant everywhere, here's one who whole heartedly embraced solitude or rather silence.

Cheers,

And regarding what solitude/silence plays in my life, well, I'll leave it to your brains to guess it out!

PS - I have used silence and solitude together or interchangeably. In reality these are two words, but go hand in hand in a super awesome way, that I felt like using them together!

Nostalgia - one more!

I always wanted to have a song blog. A blog which lists all of my favorite songs over the years. I never started that thing, but I wish to do it soon. I would love to have one such blog, I'm being honest. So, if I ever started a blog, I was wondering, which song would make up as the first entry or the first blog post. 

Yeah, you are right, this one, the above one. The song is by John Mayer from his debut album Room For Squares, name of the song is "no such thing". This song brings back tonnes of memories, what more apt than this song to chose as an opener. Hence thought of writing this on blog too.

Regarding what memories it brings well here it goes!

- I was in college while this song came out, (College memories)

- There were not much radio stations in Bangalore and the one I used to enjoy was radio city 91.1 FM and especially the show at night 10PM.

- This song used to play regularly at the night 10PM show and many a time, I had left the radio on and slept off, with the radio playing all through the night! it was indeed sweet but I used to get loads of scoldings for this habit of mine.

- This one's right or wrong not sure, the year was 2002-2003 when this debut album of John Mayer called Room For Squares went head to head with the debut album of Norah Jones, "Come Away with me" and alas Norah Jones won grammy. I always had secretly wished it would have been John Mayer for this particular fantabulous album and superior piece of song writing.

- How I knew about the album and stuff back then, well, I was following contemporary music back then. Back then great music was being made and played on radio too. 

 Unlike now where only advertisment plays and each and every song is over marketed, instead of its actual merit doing the trick, its force fed to people by playing 100000 times on the radio even though the song sounds like a jerk, you can hear the jockey telling it being an awesome song(paid media/marketing, such is the era). 

So I stopped following contemporary music since few years and have dived into retro only and I'm happy. One such song is this, whose video I have attached, great  lyrics, and in the song he talks about reunion and yeah, its been a while I have graduated from college, this song reminds me that too. Loved what the song speaks about, there is no such thing as real world, after working for these years, yeah, I just feel the same, its all what we perceive and just a lie which we gotta get above!

Cheers,

Half through the year 2017

A friend of mine asked me, its been half a year and the number of posts is not even touched 25, and yet again asked me, if I would make it to 100 by the end of the year or not.

I'm not sure of reaching 100 or not, because, I get myself occupied with loads of things these days and with minimal travelling and interaction with people, I get nothing to write. Everyone seems to be busy with their own lives. And after years of writing posts over here, I just have slowed down, being more self conscious than ever.

I remember, my last year trip to Himachal and Punjab is still pending to be written. So that would count for a good 10 posts atleast. I wish to write about couple of other treks which I did in western ghats. But yeah apart from that, all that I get to write is about the crap which runs in my mind!

But yeah, will attempt a 100 this year too,

Cheers,

Jayanagar Nostalgia

Well, the day I joined my new organization, I had to undergo a pre-employment medical checkup. So, since the office I was joining was located at South East End, I was told to report to a hospital close by which was Jayanagar 3rd block.

I headed out and got to know, my check up would be done in two parts, first part where a blood and urine sample would needed to be given plus a chest XRay and a second part including doctor consultation.

There was a good 3.5 hours gap in between and I chose not to come back home. Instead I chose to have a breakfast somewhere in Jayanagar then chose to sit in Madhavan park before being told to leave because the park closes somewhere around 10 30 am and then walked all the way to cool joint 3rd block in search of someone selling books on the street. Couldn't find any and had to walk all the way to Sapna book stall just to see that, RK Narayan's autobiography being unavailable.

Didn't chose any Ruskin Bond books as they seemed to be pricey and the kindle one appears to be cheaper. Then managed to pass some more time and finally had my doctor consultation and then left.

So why am I writing this post in the first place. Well, I have been through Jayanagar area many a times, during the last few years, days or months or whatever, each time, it was business purpose, buying something, meeting someone, some function, getting some stuffs, never it had been with a no mission intention. I used to travel through Jayanagar while coming back from office almost many such days.

This time, with 3 hours to spare, I just did not have any such above mentioned business motive and wandered aimlessly around Jayanagar. It had been almost a decade, I had been to Jayanagar just like that for casually spending time.

Gone are the days of less traffic less people and less noise. Every inch of space is used up and the moment you enter Jayanagar vicinity all you want to do is leave the crowded place behind, atleast myself.

Finally the day came to a close, I joined my new organization and its been a month, I recollect and write this,

Cheers,

Ode to my towel

Strange looking title. Ever since I had started working out in the gym probably last week of December 2013, I have used lots of clothing and accessories. One thing which remained constant from Day 1 till yesterday was my towel. I was using the same towel for almost 3 years 6 months.

It was my constant companion soaking up all the sweat and occasional tear, blood and whatever came out of my nose too! It never complained. I had put it through places and it still took everything. I used to soak it in water after workout, drain it and put it up for dry, every single day I exercised and it did not complain. Finally after all it had gone through, it just tore apart.

I had changed my running shoes, track pants, T shirts, head gear, inner wear almost everything, but this one remained constant. Now this one gone, I have nothing left to remind me of the day, I stared to workout. How I was! All I have now is memories. This towel, will be cut into pieces and used for cleaning house hold stuffs and alas, few more months it shall vanish. Until then to this ever so useful piece of equipment, adios my friend. Honestly feels nostalgic!

Yeah, I do have a picture of it! Its a good 4.5 feet in height, would cover up almost 3/4 of the exercise mat!

Cheers,

Vellarimala trek

I had stayed away from travelling for the last 2 months or so, owing to my workplace related stress, plus full summer was on. I did not want to get sick by drinking water from animal water holes as last year. So this year avoided a good two months.

But yeah, I'm proud, I was regular at the gym in these two months. Lots have happened. But I managed to get back to my old trekking ways yet again.

Last to last monday, I got a message on whatsapp, requesting anyone who wished to join Vellarimala trek in Kerala. I was ever so interested in this trek, but getting permission for this, plus a person who could speak Malayalam was way too touch for me. Hence it had remained a dream. Now when everything was arranged for only thing I had to agree, was to say yes to join. And I did.

The bus tickets were booked and Friday we left Bangalore amidst heavy downpour!  We were delayed by 3 hours on our departure owing to heavy rainfall and hence delay in starting our trek.

The trek was a very difficult one, infact the toughest of south India, plus your's truly was carrying tent as well, I guess, by the grace of god, weather god and my gym trainer I could climb this heavy climb with almost 8+ kilos load. We fell short of peak however, which was another 3 hours away, it turned night and we had to camp pitched in the tents and next day descended.

I'm least bit of sad that we could not make it to the peak vavulmalai, because it was super tough. Plus rain and leeches caused extensive slowness to the trek. I got bitten almost 15 times by leeches, almost 6 times, the leech had completely fattened after feasting on my blood. I have no regrets on it either.

But an eventful trek came to an end and we finally left God's own country on Sunday evening, not without some beautiful memories and a refreshing experience.

Cheers,

Alter thoughts - 14

Division of Labor, or is it division of power?

I recently changed jobs, earlier I was working @ Cessna Business Park, Outer Ring Road, Marathahalli, for about 3 odd years. Now I shifted to Global Village Technology Park on Mysore road. Since it was my first week at work, I was literally jobless, I could observe few things around.

So what did I observe, well let me try to put it as my thoughts. My parents called me an idiot to even think about such things. They told me to mind my own business instead of these thoughts, since I was getting paid!

Over at Cessna Tech park, I would see loads of high end cars in the parking lot. A few Toyota Fortuners, Innovas, Hyndai Verna and other sedans were pretty much a plenty. We had our own share of BMW, Audi, Mercedes vehicles for the top executives of few companies. I also saw a Porsche Cayenne SUV within our campus.

But in the first week at Global Village, all I could see, was hatchbacks, the whole parking lot was filled up with hatchback vehicles, occasionally a Honda City. Self owned Toyota Innova is a rarity and high end cars, forget them, they do not exist in this tech park. Or I have never seen them in my first week.

So why such a difference. Let me put it in few lines and close the blog post.

- It could be because, the people who sat at Marathahalli tech park were all high profile executives who could afford to own or come in or even be driven in high end cars. But over here, high profile people aren't sitting I guess.
OR
- It could be, the companies located over here, do not pay as much as salary as the one's in Outer Ring Road so that, people over here cannot afford.
OR
- It could be, the roads leading to Global Village aren't penetrable enough for high end cars?

I will leave the thinking to your own brains!

Cheers,

New beginnings...

With the advent of 2017, I was more serious in searching for a job. I had run out of excitement at work and going to work seemed more or less mundane coupled with the traffic, it seemed like a day hike to work.

I have stopped travelling these days owing to boredom and summer plus, am regular to the gym. I do not work out excessively due to the summer factor, after running so much on the treadmill, its hard to lift weights and do more cardio. So I just slowed down.

But in the month of February, with God's grace, I finally managed to get an offer at a workplace very close to my home. Yep, Global Village tech park. Though, I was not really interested in taking up the offer, the urge to quit my current workplace plus avoid traffic made me take this offer and join the company.

So, finally, I did join and its been a week and my travel time has reduced,
In a way I'm happy, I get to learn something new and get paid for it too. Lets see how long I can stick my nose out here.

Cheers,

I still have to write about how I managed NOT to say bye to anyone at my previous workplace.

Alter thoughts - 13

Alter thoughts 13

On reading.

So this is about reading, I'm just trying to find if similarities exist between reading and poking nose into other's business. Sometimes we end up reading so much about history, fiction, fantasy and other genres.

Why is it that we read, we read to gain more insight into facts, learn about what people, process, things exist around us or probably about those imaginary characters coming out of people's head.

I'm somehow trying to convince myself that people who read literature, outside a student's textbook, are more or less interested in other people's business. They turn to reading to interfere in lives of other people. Even though those people may be imaginary only.

But is it a common phenomenon for a human to intervene in other people's lives. Do all humans do it or do a specific set of people do it?

If only a specific set of people tend to interfere in other people's lives or business where and what are the rest of the people interested in? is it materialistic things?

So do people interested in materialistic things read less, or less bothered by whats going on in others lives?

Just curious if there is a fine line of similarity drawn between reading and interfering in other people's lives.

Cheers,

Alter thoughts - 12

i haven't written much on my blog, reason being, I am reading, busy with few things. One more thought always runs in my mind.

Is success is needed in any venture? Are there business whose main intention is to sustain and emphasise less on profits? or there are none.

Lets assume a company is started afresh. Private partners pool money and start running the business. After few years it turns profitable. The company goes public and then stocks of the company are brought by general public.

So now this company, has it got to be profitable all the time to pay dividends to the share holders? Can't it be that it sustains itself year after year doing same amount of activity?

If the company is not public and in the hands of private stake holders, do they opt for profit after profit or are they happy with uniform profit all through the years.

Why I'm writing this post is, the company in hope of turning more profits makes more investment into assets and manpower and other stuffs. In the end, if the company does not get much contracts to service and turn a profit or if the goods or services made or provided by the company are not sellable, there is no chance of profit, then what the company will do?

Will the share holder either public or private be ready for a loss. How many years can they run in loss, who will fund them, in the face of too much competition, is there a chance for turnover. To take over competition the company has to invest more and more, can they get back the invested amount atleast forget profit.

Also what I saw in Bangalore is that, the infrastructure is so so poor that, anything which has to sell has a heavy dependency on infrastructure. Now there is  mall which sells high tech stuffs at this so called place. With such traffic during the day, do you think I would venture out into the mall or would I stay indoors peacefully.

So does infrastructure play a role. and if the service provided by the company is of a minimal cost, to make a profit, how much should the company sell to make profits?

Cheers,

Alter thoughts - 11

Over the internet, on the television and in the books, papers I have time and again, read, seen, that laughter is the best medicine. Loads of good things happen when you laugh out loud. I do have read few books pertaining to spiritualism, I'm not that expert in scriptures, but I have touched a bit of its surface.

What thought comes to my mind is, in many of the books written by these spiritual masters, emphasis is laid on knowing oneself, mastering oneself. There is no mention of this laughing out loud technique anywhere. Did not the ancient masters of spiritualism laugh out loud, why did they not advocate them to others via their books? Why is it that they told people to be calm amidst wildfires, but not laugh out loud amidst wildfires or tight situations?

Has it been mentioned anywhere in Bhagavadgeeta or elsewhere, is that I am the one who is ignorant? It might be so, but at this moment, I do not see many places where the so called laughing out loud has been mentioned as a healing therapy or something to master.

In the modern day scenario where in I tend to keep to myself, without expressing my emotions, would I be considered someone to be  of a strict personality, where as I may be the exact opposite. I may be calm, trying to navigate around my thoughts, but just because, I do not laugh out loud in the crowd, do I get judged to be someone who is sad or strict?

Well, I do not know.

Cheers,

PS - I may be trying to compare two different dimensions over here, but somewhere, I feel the two things are related or irrelevant. Just my words seem to be inappropriate
Cheers,

Alter thoughts - 10

I had hidden this post, but strange co-incidence, I started reading Murakami book - " What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" and believe me few lines in the first chapter echoed the same sentiment of this post, I still am clueless, how I blogged about this and simultaneously picked up Murakami book (and started reading this after hiding the post)

Cheers, co-incidences exist!

Here it goes!

******************************************************************

Solo time, alone time!

There are times when I needed time off, every day I do, most weekends I need time off to myself. I do not wish to meet anyone, nor talk to anyone, have minimal interaction.

What I do, I read books listen to music, do some clean-up cook some food, buy some groceries and vegetables and yeah, see the world go by!

I may have written about it, but yeah writing again. This time generalizing or stereotyping. Do people really need time for themselves where in nobody disturbs them. Do they get it finally?

Some people tend to ignore the fact that such a thing exists. Extroverts tend to be amidst people and yet be comfortable!

But for somebody like me, I find no interest in meeting people even over the weekend. So why do people like me prefer solo time.?

There is so much of information overload during weekdays or in a day in general that, it takes much needed effort to declutter our brains from this info. I still have not processed all the recollected memories over the years and here again I make memories yet again.

To put things into place I need solo time.

Additionally I do not want to get caught up in the rat race where people compete with each other in a bulleted list called life where at 20 you complete studies at 28 you buy home then by this age get married have kids and then die!

I go by textbook where each essence each attribute has to be enjoyed deeply not superficially. So sometimes, following my own pace makes me feel like avoiding such people who are in the race to do things quick.

I get so much turned off by traffic that, I need more time just to get into traffic again!

Loads of reasons for me to sit quietly in a room and do absolutely nothing. I have been practicing this form of meditation for years now (yeah I call this meditation). wish to continue for years to come,
Cheers

Alter thoughts - 9

new ventures or so called startups!

Recently there have been a splurge in startups in Bangalore, many of these startups are offering services and few others products.

I do not want to speak about those offering products, but I wish to think about those offering services.

So my doubt is, will these start ups scale up in order to make enough profits or will they too go off or rather vanish?

I just tried to think about 3-5 startups which provide services.

Let me take the startups
1. For food delivery.
2. One which targets fitness.
3. One which targets online selling/marketplace.

Assume I have a startup idea, there is a high chance somebody is going to copy the same idea, so there you go, your chances of making profit just got halved.

Take for example the city of bangalore where infrastructure is just pathetic and yes its getting even worse. So assume you have a fitness based startup. Most people crawl at snail's pace to reach their workplace and come back home. Do they have sufficient time to attend to fitness startup considering it might or might not be closer to their home. They might make it to fitness center, but for how long, eventually they will get caught up with time and laziness and responsibility. So your target audience just got reduced. Your fitness startup has now to target people who stay at home and not get to crawl through traffic. People at home ma get sufficient exercise by doing household chores, so will they join? I may be wrong in coming to this conclusion, but, I'm just guessing.

Lets now come to the startup giving great discount on products,one which is an online market place for buying/selling. So, for this startup to sustain, it has to sell more goods and make profits. All population needs to cram more goods into their homes in order to keep these startups profitable. Is that going to happen in near future. Is there a chance the small tiny homes of people run out of space to keep unwanted items and they realize its no more healthy to buy unwanted items.

Going by this trend, I am trying to understand which startup is going to be profitable and sustainable. Probably education startups providing online tutorials? Is that? I doubt.

Am I advocating too much of negativity in saying startups wont be successful or is it my plain logic? Why can't I think startups will be successful? I just can't, everywhere I get to see peoples' greed rather or capitalism, so that's what prompts me to think otherwise. fingers crossed!

By the way a successful startup is decided by media. Going by paid media, I can get a article to circulate saying my startup is profitable, even though I may be running on investor money.

So, concluding, how do we get to know about a startup which is profitable and sustainable in a cramped infrastructure like bangalore? Is it providing a product or service?

Well,not sure, bring your thoughts!

Cheers,

Alter thoughts - 8

where is the privacy?

I still remember the incident which happened in Hubli, when I was a kid. We were visiting a temple and my mother happened to meet one of her schoolmates in Hubli after 20 odd years. She had come there with her son. So how was it,like meeting someone after so many years. There was no good connectivity before, people could not add each other on facebook as friends, could not message each other on whatsapp, forget that, they could not speak to each other over phone line as many of them did not have access to private phones.

So this being the scenario, we did not necessarily have to spend time attending to the virtual social life and we could be discreet from people as well.

Growing old was so much more fun, doing things slowly your way instead of catching up with everybody's facebook/instagram posts, trying to ape them.

Anyways, this was one such alter thought which came to my mind!

Cheers

Ghuttu - Uttarakhand / Remote villages of the Himalayas - 2

After Ghansali village in Uttarakhand, we headed next to Ghuttu. This was another small village kind of thing located remotely from mainland. It was one of the better populated villages with a GMVN guest house. It had a good place to eat. There was a bus which would start each day morning and go to Hrishikesh which would be around 7+ hours journey. Apart from that, the another bus would come back and be parked at Ghuttu overnight. This is the place, where we actually relaxed and had great dinner after a hard hard trek. It had a flowing river, lesser population, less disturbance,
amazing sunset.

We got to stay in this place for almost 3/4 of a day from 1pm in the afternoon till 6 30 in the next day. I cannot really call this a remote village, but indeed was an awesome place to unwind after a long arduous trek.

For lunch we ate all sorts of junk food, Samosa, gulab jamoon, veg chowmen.

Dinner was usual roti, rice and curry!

Cheers,

Ghansali - Uttarakhand / Remote villages of the Himalayas - 1

Auden's col was one such difficult trek, where we had exhausted everything in order to complete this trek. We were at our end of our energy levels, we had been stuck in snow blizzard for a day, we had rapelled from 500 feet using a single rope. We had crossed glaciers and we had walked through rockfall and avalanche zones.

Finally after a hard day's climb, we got to this village. The best part of reaching this village was encountering kids each one of them asking "Mitthi". Initially we did not understand what Mitthi was. But it meant sweets or toffees.Incidentally these kids request each visitor to that village sweets. Unfortunately, after being in the Himalays for 9 days, we did not have any
stock of chocolates of toffees. Everything we had was stale or just gotten over. We spent one whole evening plus night in this village guest house. I can never forget this village due to the hardships we encountered in reaching this village.

Cheers,

Remote villages of the Himalayas.- 0

Though I have been only on a few Himalayan treks, I am fortunate enough to visit few villages remotely nested within the Himalayas.
Reaching there has been problem, but upon reaching the remote village, the feeling of joy excitement is nothing short of unparallel.
Its always fun, thinking of these remote villages. Reason being, they are are so remote, its kind of achievement, after days of wandering in the Himalays like a mad guy, we end up amidst these villages which are almost a day or two away from regular human civilization.

So here goes the list of remote villages which we were fortunate enough to visit amidst our Himalayan treks.

- Ghansali / Uttarakhand.
- Ghuttu / Uttarakhand.
- BaraBhangal / Himachal Pradesh.
- Rajhgunda / Himachal Pradesh.
- Kaza / (Spiti)Himachal Pradesh.

Cheers, more description to follow.

Alter thoughts - 7

There is a general saying which goes, man should not sit idle, instead should strive for excellance. Excellance comes with hard work, meaning an individual must be in continous pursuit, which indirectly means he should not idle time doing nothing. He should always be focused.

I have seen people idling time. Where they do absolutely nothing and spend time, over discussions having tea, or sleeping under a tree. These people are often criticized for not being productive, growing old doing absolutely nothing.

So let me tell you my side of the argument and let me try to convince you why.

I am totally in favor of people who are sleeping under a tree, idling time over conversations and growing old doing absolutely nothing. But why is that the case?

Assume a situation each and every person works very hard. you will not find an individual, who is unproductive. Everyone works their heart out. But have you ever thought, are there sufficient usages of everyone striving hard.

A cobbler can work hard and stitch 100 shoes instead of 10.
A metal worker can work very hard and come up with loads of pressed metal, cut metal polished metal.
A cook can churn up 100 meals instead of 10.
A driver can drive all day long and drive 1000 kilometers instead of 100.

Lets take a step back, a cobbler will stitch 100 shoes only if there is a demand for those many numbers, if there are buyers for so many shoes. Why will a cobbler stitch so many shoes when there are no buyers?

Same way, a cook shall not cook, if there are no people to eat 100 meals.

There it goes, whats the point in the cook, driver, cobbler being so productive and hard working? when there is no demand for his work.

May be there is a way to artificially induce deficit in the market where in people can buy junk.

So, whats the point in everyone being so productive, striving for excellance. This brings us to the point where people criticize idlers, people who grow old doing nothing.

Are we correct in criticizing them, of course NO, as long as they are able to feed themselves comfortably, who are we to criticize the idlers?

After all life is meant to be enjoyed. For some people enjoying may mean through hard work and earning money while for others it might be just idling time.

What say,

Cheers,

One such Trek to remember - TTTT 38

There is some kind of general presumption that goes with a Himalayan trek. The presumption is that, after each Himalayan trek, any individual ends up losing weight, because, its exhaustive, walking, climbing over days together is not simple task.

But I have one such tale to share, where, my weight neither decreased nor remained the same. Yes, you heard it right, it means that, my weight had increased after the trek.

We went for a 12 day trek in the Himalayas, in September 2015, and when I came back to Bangalore and checked my weight, I had increased 0.5 kilos.

I may have eaten proper food in the time between completion of trek and me checking weight. But still, I think I know the root cause of this.

We had 10 ponies carrying food supplies. We had eggs till the last but two days of the trek. We crossed 3 high altitude passes and each time after pass crossing, we had chomen /noodles , pasta, custard and other food. On arriving at campsite on each trek, we were treated with loads of food.

No wonder, my weight increased over 12 days!

Cheers,

PS- How I wish, I do the trek again.!

Trek was Bara Bhangal trek in Himachal Pradesh, crossing 3 high altitude passes.
This route is fondly called the shepard's trail!

Happy birthday, Jamsetji Tata

Remembering the architect of India, Jamsetji Tata on his 178th birthday. 

Alter thoughts - 6

This post is a bit haywire, starting with me, going to he, then me, kindly excuse, just got a bit confused as to what I was trying to write!

Time and again, I have heard, people saying do what you love and love what you do. Some thoughts linger in my head regarding the above two line. I agree you need to do what you love. But when it comes to the question of sustenance, does this really apply.

Lets assume, I love photography and I wish to pursue it as a career. So, I end up doing what I love and I love what I do. Now lets give a thought about sustaining and revenue generation. In order to survive, I need money for my daily needs, food and shelter. Following my dream job can I achieve the same. Well, yes, but how?

Traditionalists say you have to work very hard, day in and day out you have to focus and finally it will yield results. So lets just think about hard work, scope of application and reward in the field of photography.

Just like me there will be 100's of people pursuing their own passion of photography so, its not a niche field. You just cannot tell how one person(professional) is better from the other just by looking at the photo and comparing.

Now, since there are many photographers around who do things professionally, what are the chances of me getting a contract and making money enough to be able to sustain myself? I'm not sure. If I had inherited a fortune from my parents things would have been different. But over here I rely on external contracts for steady source of income.

Does it exist, may be or may not be. Since there are many professionals in the field of photography, you need to charge bare minimum to get contracts. so you end up with some money after all.

So are you now sure that, you are still in the game and enjoying it considering you earn something which is a bit meagre? I'm not sure,

What I would like to tell is, even if you may end up doing what you love the most, you should never expect it to earn you a bread, because the chances of having a non existant market for your interest and high competition might drive you nuts. If it does not earn you a bread, should you still be doing what you love? (is there sufficient market to provide source of income to all, who follow their hearts)

But these days, I see, artificial market generation, in other words, trying to market a field which literally is non existent or is not essential. in order to make people spend money on things (photography) which they are not interested in, there is tremendous aggresive marketing strategies applied, where in the user gets tricked into buying unncessary junk and realizes the fact that he has invested (his saved) money only later to regret!

Is it ethical, just in order to keep one's inventions and interests running, you trick people into the application of stuffs, while you well know, its only leading to capitalism and nothing else. For example buying stuffs using smartphone on massive discounts!

Cheers,

Alter thoughts - 5

My blog is generally not read by many, but yeah, I do remember someone, somewhere reading it and when you get some words of appreciation on this kind of post which evokes mixed response (rather depressive) in a normal crowd, you can be rest assured, you have an alter friend in your reader! Well, I have ZERO answers or solutions to the alter thoughts which run in my head.

Here goes another one!

I sometimes wonder, is 24 hours enough for a day. I generally get this thoughts because, we end up giving our time to so many people/stuffs, that, we do not get time for ourselves. Our day starts with or in the presence of someone and it ends with or in the presence of someone.

So, where do we sneak in the alone time? We work in some company, we eat in some company, we finally land home to some company. Is there a slight chance of a person being all alone for himself during the day? I guess not. If someone takes out his alone time, I'm sure the world is waiting to call him mad or depressed!

Do we nurture ourselves by not interacting with anyone? I know most people never feel such things, just seeing time go by is so much fun, but growing old is not so much. And yes, I get judged by people, which I do not really mind!

I haven't yet found a concrete way to balance family life with the need to be alone. Will write about it once that happens!

Somewhere in the middle, people will transition from kids to teenagers to adults to aged people and yeah, there you go, your life's over, zero introspection, unfulfilled ambitions or rather unfound dreams, and so, is 24 hours enough?

Cheers,

PS - I think after certain while, when you have a family, the urge to spend time alone becomes almost non existant, am I correct? 

Alter thoughts - 4

I sometimes just wonder, why does man work hard, why does man strive?

The reason lies in either of these,
- Strives to make money for various below reasons.
- Strives to find a sense of social security. So that, when he gets sick, he has some money to fend for himself, when it rains, he has a shelter, when he feels hungry he has food to eat.

So in a quest for his overall well being, he moves out of his comfort zone, he moves mountains, he works day and night so that the fruits of his labor act as enabler for the above mentioned areas of his interest.

I was just thinking is there a chance for a  mediocre man in this world? A man, who enjoys what is he doing at his own pace and lives life at his own pace and runs his own race.

Do we have to compromise on something, if we are opting out of the rat race? Working in Bangalore, I do feel its all about rat race. I am not sure if anyone thinks otherwise please let me know.

Everyday, I see people, including me, ferrying from one side of town to the other side, in search of work for work, for rending their service. If they do not, they (including me) will have no money to fend for themselves(ourselves too).

Doing this for years together, we may grow old, money may keep many happy provided it gives a sense of security and our work gives us a sense of respect. We get identified by these parameters by people whom we interact with.

Just curious, if all the people working so hard and part of the rat race, are they really happy, doing whatever they are doing. Or are they just trying to follow the crowd, where everyone does some work gets paid goes home and sleep.

With so much of travel, traffic, noise and pollution, and 9 hours of office work, is this the only way, I get to grow old? Is this the only way, I get to find my sense of identity, is this the only way, each human has to live/work.

Is there a different way to feel complete, achieving a sense of satisfaction, with all the hustle and bustle going on in our daily lives?

Why do people ask me, what I do with all my money, where have I invested it, why nobody asks me, am I happy with my job, am I at peace with myself?

Cheers, 

Alter thoughts - 3

Social networking -

The emergence of social networking in this decade is noticeable. It has its own advantages,
- It has given enough employment opportunities to people.
- It has made investors open up more of their money to build social networking systems,
- It has helped people to keep in touch, to network, to market to indulge in a way which was not possible previously!
- It has helped to send important especially distress signals quickly for a large audience.

Previously, growing up, absence of social networking, if a classmate changed schools, it would take months to recognize where in the world that guy went, I still have not met people who left school midway to another city / locality / country!

But are there any down sides. Oh yes, indulgence is good, over indulgence is not so good.

For people who wish to abstain from the crowd and lead life at their own paces, well, I am literally clueless, on how to abstain from reception of so many information.

Here I am getting force fed about information, data about lot of unwanted things and believe me, I am getting old, trying to interpret or analyze this information. I agree its a good past time, but on the contrary, it has led me to dissect every minuscule detail, most of which are unnecessary.

I am interested in good books, stories, and here I get all shown all info about movies, advertisements, what not. So, in a world where I try to mind my own business, here I am being shown everything materialistic, capitalistic. There are certain aspects of life which cannot be portrayed, which have to be felt, which can never be shown, but have to be understood and deeply nurtured and idolized. Like getting up on a Monday morning, doing nothing, abstaining from work, just seeing the world go by, not interacting with anyone.

Why are such simple pleasures not being shown. ?

If extreme capitalism, marketing is not the buzz on social media, we have people who try portraying themselves as the next best thing. like the,
- next best traveller,
- next best photographer,
- next best baker,
- next best socialite.

I agree, I do have photos on social networking, but guess what, after an year of joining the site, I have 85% friends on the restricted list, most of whom cannot see what I have shared. I am not being a hypocrite, I am just being myself, trying to hide my personal life/travel/ happenings from the race.

The next point which I have is, education should tell a man what is good and what is bad. But isn't over marketing bad? isn't over capitalism bad and here it is being done by all the educated people themselves, the root cause of which is to earn money.

well, hasn't education taught us that money is not everything. It has, but undergoing education is different and applying education is different. Most people end up studying and not applying, especially basics.

On the contrary education has definitely taught me, over indulgence is bad, I have deleted my quora account and I rarely check facebook/goodreads these days, the reason being, there are people everywhere portraying themselves as rockstars, most of whom do not get paid for doing so, its just the alter life they are leading or rather illusion which they are trying to portray, (who knows underneath of it what they might be hiding). And I do not find the need to fill my head with tonnes of information, I am trying to keep it simple, however, I have failed in keeping this post simple!

Here we are a generation of over-educated, success hungry freaks, trying to make money at an entire human species cost. There seems to be no care anymore in this world. Any person who cannot participate in the capitalistic rat race seems to be sidelined as an indifferent specie.

Anyways too many points in this single post, I will try to decipher them as and when I get time. Posted since my friend asked me to write something.

I can write about positivity, about my travel, but yeah, how long to suppress these alter thoughts.

By the way, this blog URL is known only to a specific set people.

Cheers,

PS - After reading this post, I am not sure what you will end up turning me as, sadistic, hypocrite, mad, lost soul ? let me hear your opinions!

Alter thoughts - 2

This post is dedicated to the person who opened up to me saying how less friends he/she had over the years!

Recently was having a conversation with a friend of mine, who was telling about how less friends he/she had over the years. That person also told me what was the reason for having less or no friends.

I tend to agree with all of the points with what the person told.

So, the alter thoughts or questions which currently run in my head are,
- Is it really necessary to have friends.
- Can a person survive individually?
 - Does not having friends points to some kind of social stigma which society has given birth to.

I am someone who is of the belief that, friends or no friends, as long as a person is happy, it hardly matters!

Look what I found on an inspirational post on a social networking site!

Cheers,

Alter thoughts - 1

There are several thoughts which do round my head, I wonder why do I get into such thinking. I have always tried not to write serious matter in my blog, rather stuffs which are light weight, which brings smile on my face and reminds me of good old days!

But here I am, into this new year, as I grow older, I am thinking of putting thoughts down, under a different label though. I wish I won't be judged as sadistic, unrealistic. But you never know what runs in people's heads.

After working for so many years in IT, I have come across many people many questions many stuffs which leads me to few points!

 - Is this life meant only to be successful.
 - Is this life meant only to be rich & make more money
 - Is this life meant only to be lead on society's terms and not on one's own terms.

Several bollywood movies have taught us to lead lives on our own terms. But do we actually apply things. Never mind. Found a community on facebook and found this nice picture and lines. Here it goes!

In the coming few posts I try to dissect what runs in my head!

Cheers for now,

When we met the same driver again, on another trip - TTTT 37.

Last year december, we went to Gokarna in a hired vehicle which ended up with a flat tyre on two different occasions. We had to spend close to 6 hours early in the morning stranded on the road due to lack of help or repair.

So, we had thought we would never ever hire the same over confident driver or vehicle from the same tours guy again. But luck would have it otherwise.

This year we decided to visit Dandeli and guess what, the driver and vehicle was none other than the previous one only. Just that it had a new set of rubber and we were travelling on NH4. Luckily no such flats happened during this time and we reached home safely.

Cheers,

100 posts for the year

Done and dusted with 100 posts this year. I thought of writing about my Himalayan trek and put some pictures, but could not do due to few reasons. Last couple of months have been bit dull and boring.

Ending 2016 with a note of thanks to God for keeping me alive, my parents, my teachers and well wishers who have enriched my year with their presence,

Few trips did not happen,
Few purchases did not happen,
Here's hoping 2017 has a better stuffs in store,

Cheers,

Shuttle driver #16 - A driver who used to drive an ambulance

I have not written about cab driver series for quite some time, the reason being, we are having a steady driver for over 6 months. Well the reason for having steady driver is, nobody is ready to ply towards Kengeri from marathahalli. Current driver stays at Bidadi so its easy for him to drop us and head home.

The biggest irony is, we have had a steady cab for 6+ months, but there is unsteadiness at workplace. Few people have been deboarded and many people have left or leaving. Its sad to see so much of turmoil at workplace, and believe me its going to continue into the new year.

The current driver drives a Toyota Etios sedan. Previously he tells us he has driven an Ambulance (Maruti Omni). His driving style is the most disastrous of all (till date) and its more or less a pain to sit in the cab.

But we save 20 odd minutes each side owing to this reckless driving. But listening to so much of honking experiencing this much of braking leads to nothing but absolute frustration.

Why haven't I told him to drive carefully? Well, I had a fight with the cab driver, supervisor and few other people, and ever since then, I just shut my mouth in the cab and sit!

Reason for fight, I generally come late out of office usually 8 15pm and one day it just led to a heated argument and I just gave it back to my director,

that's it. So nothing special to write about this driver,

Cheers,

Is this Indian IT industry an illusion or a stereotype

I am still trying to understand the IT industry in India, trying to find out if its a illusion or a stereotype.

Let me write down the reasons why I can call it illusion is -

1. There seems to be very few fresh development projects which I see happening in India. (I have tried my hands at few companies and most work appears to be maintenance and highly non intellectual).

2. There are many startups and stuffs like that ,which are developing software, but, their main business is service aggregation, like online selling, online services etc and over here too the software is stabilized and not much new activity tends to happen!

3. There are many such development projects startups which never see the limelight. All those code written, software developed never gets to be deployed, never gets to churn out money, instead its just shelled.

I may be wrong, but generally assuming, why would Europe/US companies give out the development projects to Indian counterparts where in the  market lies over there. How do we understand market needs of other continent sitting over here. So actually speaking, we get to do the mundane work at lesser price.

Let me write down as to why I can call it a stereotype -

1. There is a huge requirement for people with lesser experience. Because they are paid less and charged more to the client. So if they are charged 15 Lakhs per annum they are paid only 3 Lakhs per annum. This is how the company makes money, not by selling software but by selling manpower and headcount!

2. If I spend some years in IT like more than 8 years, I am automatically stereotyped to be a manager (or an architect if lucky). Manager meaning managing people, whose numbers are generally less. Now are they non billable resources to the company? do they get paid from the timesheets filled by their sub-ordinates? because the client necessarily does not have to pay for the project or people management, he usually wants the work to get done.

So either ways you want to enter the Indian IT industry, you get stuck in this current of illusion or stereotype which you realize after you hit a deadlock.

Deadlock is when you hit a salary of some amount, experience of some amount and then you have no where to go, because companies want people with lesser experience and lesser salary expectations. There you go, only option left with you is to play politics at office to spend time or speak continuously yielding no results but showcasing one's marketing skills!

By the way when the number of such people (above categories) exist in the company, what do you think they do? They disrupt the work going on, they will not let others work. And the remaining people who wish not to disrupt other peoples' work, well, they end up clueless, may be in deep depression trying to find out larger meaning of life!

Cheers,

When we crossed two high altitude mountain passes on the same day (by road) - TTTT 36.

This too happened during our Himachal trek this year. We were returning from Kaza, Spiti valley and coming towards Manali. One the way we had to cross two high altitude mountain passes within a span of 5 hours.

Kunzum la  - 4590m or 15060 feet - stopped here to visit the Kunzum Mata temple. (5 30 pm)

Rohtang la  - 3978m or 13050 feet - Was all foggy wet, raining, poor visibility, less than 3 feet forward, was infact fearing for life, if the van slipped or skidded, we would have ended up in trouble. (11 30 pm)

Cheers,

When I completed lunch by 10:30 am - TTTT 35.

Many a times we  might have finished lunch by 11 am. But a how many times a full fledged course meal having roti, rice, rajma, aloo curry? This happened during our Himachal trek during this year 2016. We completed our trek and we ended up at Mudh Village in Spiti valley. From there on we arrived at Kaza in Spiti.

We had started from Mudh at 6 20 am and did not have breakfast. We had a long journey in front of us to Manali crossing Rohtang la and Kunzum la. So we thought of having as much food as we can. But would it be better if we completed lunch itself?  Oh yes.

But who in this place would feed us lunch that too at 10 30 am in the morning.

Yes, we found a hotel, one of our support staff knew a family who ran a hotel in the market place of Kaza and we went there for food. It was the first time I called home after 9 days flat, because I was able to get a connectivity with a BSNL sim.

Once we were at the hotel we found out we could have roti/aloo and rajma. But rice, yeah, we requested the chef to prepare rice too and he quickly got it done too. Though we waited for a good 15 minutes, it was worth it.

What followed was a bumpy ride in a rented Mahindra Scorpio along the non existant roads of Spiti valley. Though I was sitting in the middle seat, I almost ended up vomiting/puking. But the scorpio had a tyre flat on two occasions and we were stranded with no option in the middle of the road.

Finally we could gather a Tempo traveller as a replacement and yeah thus ended up my vomiting senstaion woes. I did not puke, luckily!

Cheers,

Tulu - When a language left me wanting for more - TTTT 34.

I am not sure if its a tale to tell, but its for me to learn. In the last couple of years, I have been to coastal Karnataka almost 12-14 times. Each time, I have met people speaking in Tulu. Many such times, I have people in our team who are either from Mangalore/Udupi/Puttur speaking Tulu with the locals.

I admit, I find listening to Tulu language very very nice. I cannot speak Tulu, but its on my wish list to speak. It sounds musical. I have plans to learn Tamil/Telgu/Marathi, but Tulu seems to be on a higher priority because of the fact that, it simply sounds so cool, the wordings the pronounciation. In case you find couple of Tulu speaking people, just listen to them, I bet, its fun, its addictive!

I really miss talking to the locals in Tulu, wish I could do it someday, wish I could do more trips to coastal Karnataka.

Until then watch out or search for the video featuring a movie scene Eragavuye kirikiri, its from a Tulu movie Ekka Saka

Cheers,
PS - I am not mocking or sarcastic while I write this, I genuinely admire the language.

This year we lost a music icon

Glenn Frey is a great musician, a legend infact. He along with Don Henley and few others played as Eagles in the late 60's early 70's and disbanded probably during 1980. They came back in the year 1994 and introduced themselves as a band which took a 14 year vacation.

Prior to the split they had announced they would unite only if Hell Freezes over and boy I guess that was the name of the reunion tour.

The year was 1994, I was still a kid, but I still remember distinctly playing Eagles tape again and again. Then, I never knew the history behind Eagles. My father is a fan of Eagles, so am I. Since 1994 I have listened to the Eagles a countless number of times, yet I am not bored by their songs.

Its sad, Glenn Frey is no more. I am listening to the song Take It easy as I am posting this from office. Remember the Scooty advertisement in the 90's featuring Raageshwari? Yeah that background song is Take it easy and by Glenn Frey!

Do check out the concert video of the song Take it easy especially the Hell Freezes over tour one, you will learn how a man in his 40's can rock with a guitar and blue and gray Tee shirt!

Hats off Glenn Frey! you will be missed.

Cheers,

PS - End of the year, George Micheal passed away, I listened to him only after 2001, not before that., because I was simply not aware. My favorite song by George Micheal is Father Figure. 

One temple, One year, two visits, two different times - TTTT 34.

I have to be shameless to admit that I have not visited any local temples this year. I remember visiting none closeby home this year. Not even on my birthday. I feel extremely gutted as I write this. But I have been praying at home, I should thank God for keeping me alive and kicking.

There is one such temple which I visited two times this year, two different seasons, and this temple happens to be almost 500 kilometers from home.

This place is Gundabala village in Honnavara and the temple is MUKYAPRANA LAXMI VENKATESH DEVA. Believe me, first time when we visited this place, there was a marriage celebration going on and someone from the bride side offered us to have evening snacks (all in return for speaking in Tulu, though we denied).

This time, we went again in the month of October. Boy o Boy, though not in Bangalore, I can claim to have visited a temple. The amount of peace which I got in return is priceless.

Cheers,

One more tale from the Himalayan trek - TTTT 33.

One such funny incident happened during my this year's Himalayan trek. This happened after we had crossed the Pin pass on day 8 of our 10 day trek. [we completed our 9+ 1 rest day trek in 8 days by the way].

During the first few days of the trek, I had refused to eat wild apricots and berries from the forest. I had done this to avoid any upsets to my stomach. I had put in lots of money for the trek, and preparation too. I did not want an upset stomach to bring down my chances of completion.

After the pass crossing, I found myself roaming around the campsite, bare footed. I was not wearing any slippers or footwear, just to feel extra comfortable. I did feel comfortable too.

But my colleagues warned me of frost bite once. Mother earth was not that cold. So I ignored their words. But second and third time, they told me, how did you muster so much of courage to walk bare footed ignoring frost bites, where in you acted like a chicken to taste wild berries and apricots!

I was in a dilemma, I just escaped the argument, but honestly, speaking, I still feel, the chances of frost bite was a bit less, where as chances of upset tummy was huge, plus eating wild fruits was during the first 2-3 days of the trek!

Never mind, one more tale from the trek!

Cheers,

When we were at the recieving end of a food giveaway TTTT 32.

Many a times, I have had the opportunity to distribute food which we had cooked in excess. I do not count it as huge number of instances but atleast few times. But till date was never at the recieving end of this.

Imagine a situation where you travel and you take your cooking utensils, you cook and cook a bit extra, instead of disposing off the food, you try to find people whom you can distribute the extra food to. Yes, exactly, this was the exact situation, I am trying to write about.

We had completed playing for sometime along the beach and also in the beach waters of ApsaraKonda. So it was time to get a fresh water bath at the ApsaraKonda waterfall.

We did have a shower at the Apsarakonda fresh water fall. While going to the waterfall, we noticed, few guys had parked their van and were having a late lunch. It was around 5 pm. We were wondering, these guys were lucky to have found a nice place and shade to park, cook and eat.

After we finished our bath and were returning, we were waiting for our van too, to come to the same place instead of we going there, also, few of our guys were slow in finishing their bath and hence we decided to wait, and we sat opposite but at a bit far distance from these people who by then had finished eating.

Within few minutes, few of their guys came and asked us if we would like to have biryani. We 3 people being vegetarians said no. But we asked few of our team members who followed shortly, and it turned out around 4 people readily acknowledged.

The people who had parked their van were from Harihara, the satisfaction on my friends faces after consuming biryani was priceless, plus in a way they helped a cause too. instead of wasting food, its always better to volunteer up!

Cheers,

When I ran out of the beach waters - TTTT 31.

One such crazy incident happened this time. Out of the number of times, I have entered the sea waters, I never felt insecure by the creatures crawling in the water. I have only been scared of the water dragging me into the sea.

This time, while we were enjoying the waves were in the beach waters, one of our team members got bitten by a jelly fish or not sure what creature it was.

He pretty much quickly got out of the water, I was bit reluctant to head out of the water. But I came close to the shore and stood up, where in I just saw the cup shaped creature pass near my leg. I assumed it to be the same thing which had bit him on his forearm.

At this moment, my scare knew no bounds and there you go, I just ran out of the beach waters, just to avoid one more round of conflict with that creature.

Cheers,

Beach trek 2016

Starting from the year 2013, I have been taking part in a beach trek, each year. It involves walking along the beaches, the coastline. The fun part is walking barefoot, with the waves hitting your legs, the sun, the tan, plus loads of dehydration.

This year was no different. And I traversed the same old route, Gokarna to Honnavara, only difference is that, we started from Kudle beach instead of OM Beach.

Covered few beaches, waited for ferry crossing at Tadadi port/ Aghanashani river, then camped at Holanagadde Sri Ramanajaneya Temple.

It was fun, just a bit lesser crowd this time around! Can't imagine one year has just flown by!

Cheers,

PS - Distance covered 37.1 kilometers,
Start Point - Kudle beach, Gokarna
End Point - Dhareshwar beach, Haldipur.

Other places of visit -
Apsarakonda beach + Apsarakonda Waterfall!

Winding up 2016.

2016 year comes to an end, I am close enough to my quest of phabricating a 100 posts! This year has been an altogether different experience. I have troubled my parents on two different occasions to the core. Each time I go on a Himalayan trek, my parents are of the opinion that Himalayas will melt and I will end up not returning home, but it has not been the case, since I feel God is with me or I have been plain lucky.

I wish going to a Himalayan trek was a butt load simpler than bearing so much of emotional stress. I agree its tough on my parents part, but even more than that, listening to the negative aspect of Himalayas melting, the whole idea of training and focusing for it, is just ripped apart. Never mind,

I completed Pin Parvaty Pass trek this year after having made a come back from a stomach infection / urinary tract infection and bouts of fever. It was at a height of 17280 feet and we ended up in Spiti Valley/Kaza/Kuzum and travelled along India's deadliest roads!

I have been training regularly in the gym and my battle with gaining or losing weight still is on. I feel satisified with this aspect of life.

I could not read much during the second half of 2016, just lost interest blindly and with no reason.

I could not write much, again owing to losing interest (however I am trying to catch up).

I lost interest in work, work has become monotonous and so mundane that, I can see where its heading,

Parted ways with couple of good friends at office.

Stranded on the road 2 times this year, both the times due to rear left tyre flat (coincidence), once in Spiti valley and recently in Karnataka itself, one for almost 4 hours and the other for almost 6 hours.

Visited Himachal/Punjab/Golden temple/Wagah Border

Did two trips to TamilNadu/Kodaikanal/Kolkumalai and then 4-5 trips to coastal Karnataka (Honnavara/Gokarna/Kumta/Sharavathy/Gersoppa/Gundabagal/Shimoga/Sagar/jog).

Did not drive my car much no long trips, very busy training / work, parents uninterested,

Thus totally lost interest in buying a Toyota Innova even when it was offered at a discount price. Just have no more interest, in taking additional ownership and responsiblity.

Enjoyed solitude to the core, grown old spending time alone, doing nothing, just thinking, listening to music, less mingling with friends and almost nill superficial over hyped talks.

Cheers,

there goes one more year, workwise absolute blunder, but yeah, I am paid, so no worries, plus I got time to workout!

One such day at the gym

If today was yet another day at the gym, why am I even posting this. Well there is a special reason. Every single day, I listen to boring music in the gym. Sometimes its radio and most of the times some playlist which seems uninspiring and pretty mundane.

But today was different. I do not know who had provided the songs for the hour I went. There was
- Vengaboys (Brazil)
- Blue (one Love),
- Led Zepplin (stairway to heaven).
- Cranberries (Zombie).
- Ricky Martin (LIvin Lavida Loca).
- Jethro Tull (Whistler).
- Linkin Park (Somewhere I belong)

It was surprising yet refreshing, the curse on the trainer's face became evident when Jethrotull track started playing. Did I mind, absolutely not.

My favorite Def Leppard however did not appear though!

Cheers,

PS - Whats so special - These are 70's 80's 90's songs, and I have been listening to them for a decade and yet feels so new so neat!

Why do people give up on life. - TTTT 30

I have heard from many people (at-least few in number) that they had enough of life. I have no objections against what runs in people's mind after all its their mind, their thoughts. So I wonder why do people lose interest in life. I know there are bitter incidents which one has to swallow, some people are plain lucky while some people have to struggle to meet or make ends meet.

I do agree that in a way, each person's life is not the same. But listening to thoughts of people giving up on life is kind of unpleasant, especially, if a person is hale and healthy with absolutely zero physical ailments.

Recently, I was stranded on a highway and I had no option to wait until a person came to bail out with his tractor and a jumper cable. This person is very famous in the locality for helping out people in need and especially those stranded on the highway.

We were pretty much excited that our ordeal had come to an end. But upon seeing this person who had come to help us, I felt shame for myself. We were 12 people and couldn't do much after being stranded! (except raising hands upwards in despair)

This person had lost one of his leg in an accident. Yet he was famous for helping out bailing out people, He was enthusiastic. He was pleasing. He radiated positivity.

Was it necessary for him to wake up so early and come with his tractor go searching for a jumper cable and come to our rescue?

Here we are cribbing about putting end to life because of some reason, and over here we see a true fighter. He showed me how to put to use one's life, via sincere self service, dedication and expecting nothing in return!

Lots to learn seeing people help you while in dire straits.

Would never have met this gentleman if we would not have been stranded in this place.

Cheers,

PS - I know preaching the above words is very easy, I can understand the pain which goes through the thought process.

Giving up on my sugar coated dream.

Ever since I had Toyota Innova as a cab, I had dreamt of owning one, below are few of the reasons,
- Reliability
- Passenger comfort.
- Driver comfort.
- Good option for long multiday highway runs.
- Bullet proof engine.

There was no other vehicle which came close to Innova. I was driven in Mahindra vehicles in Sikkim, Uttarakhand and Himachal, but it did not come close Innova, I could never dream of driving a Mahindra over an Innova.

I was checking seriously for an Innova for almost an year. Finally I got a chance to own one used at a hefty price tag though. Innova never comes cheap. This one is from a family relative!

I had made up my mind on buying and about to transfer the advance amount but then a strange turn around happened. I spoke with my friend who asked me few questions on my decision to buy an expensive used car.

- I had not driven along highways for almost an year.
- I did not do  major driving recently.
- I was finding it difficult to maintain my current car without much driving.
- I was not ready for additional responsibility.
- I was not ready to part with my Tata car.

 Regularly work, gymming and trekking had kept me so so busy that, this spending was not at all justified.

So, I had to give up on my sugar coated dream of owning and driving a Toyota Innova. It simply did not make sense, to put money on something which would depreciate, which I had no use regularly.

Owning and parking it would indirectly turn me into a laughing stock. Yeah, its still my life, but this one was truly not necessary.

I wonder what I would have done, if I had ended up being jobless in the new year, is there a slowdown in near future?

I'm glad I have saved some lakhs and I am now having a happy and peaceful mind & head.

Thanks for my friend!

Cheers,

PS - Losing hard earned money, years of salary is definitely a big effort.

When actions speak louder than words - TTTT 29

Its amazing how one real life incident throws up so many ideas to write, shows how many life skills which we are missing, how many countless hours we are spending ridiculing others, speaking about others instead of honing our own skills.

My previous posts have highlighted about our situation when we were stranded on the highway yesterday with no help. Our vehicle refused to start owing to a drained battery. Now that we managed to source a battery and jumper cable, somebody had to do this piece of work. This might be a simple task for someone who knows basics well, but for a bystander it definitely is rocket science.

Luckily we in our group, we had one mechanical engineer, a proper mechanical engineer, a guy with hands-on training/experience with mechanical/automotive systems. A guy who had fitted AC units to buses, a guy who had crash tested buses. And believe me it showed.

While most people in current world, speak loads and do nothing, he directly jumped and connected the battery terminals of the tractor battery to our vehicle battery and after 5 minutes of idling we could start up our vehicle. (Spare the driver who not sure was aware or not)

It only shows actions speak louder than words. We were so privileged to have this person on board.

In my current organization as well as, I get poor pathetic feedback from people for the code I write. These are the people who do not write a single line of production code and still point fingers at me for writing bad production code! Such is irony!

(I do not react, but I only blog, yes my appraisal goes for a toss, but at-least I get to save my energy and wisdom for some other day! )

Cheers,

PS - Great talkers are never great doers, only people with hands-on experience come to the rescue. This has motivated me to speak less these days, because, there is no point trumpeting without basics (knowledge). I need to speak when I am pretty sure about the subject.

PPS - And yes, I am still bad at basics!

When many of the vehicles on the highway were ready to help. TTTT 28

I could have written about this post earlier too, but my goal to reach 100 posts for the year 2016 is making me to write newer shorter posts.

Today morning after being stranded on the highway, we planned to stop on going vehicles asking for help. I tried to stop few vehicles on the road around 6 30 am. Believe me, most yellow board/commercial vehicles stopped and were ready to help, but owing to non availability of jumper cable they could do nothing.

The reason why I am writing about this is, its only once in a while, I have encountered so many vehicles ready to stop. In general, I myself do not stop owing to the fear of getting robbed,but over here, even vehicles with single owner/driver stopped and asked what has gone wrong.

One such good day it was!

Cheers,

When being stranded on highway taught us a lesson - TTTT 27

Traveling teaches us lots of life lessons. Being stranded or unexpected situations while on travel teaches us even more. But the helping hand who bails us out also teaches us a bit more too.

It was my second time this year, I was stranded on the highway with no help or option. When help came it was a local gentleman who came with a tractor and jumper cable. He himself brought the cable which was a great deal in itself.

We were 12 fully grown up guys we could not manage to start the vehicle by pushing, could not get help from the highway anywhere. The guy who came with the tractor had lost one of his leg in an accident. He was so brave that he drove a tractor despite his condition and on top of that, came to help us.

Sometimes, I feel pity myself for the way, I behave with people, over here, this person early morning, despite his condition came to help us, to bail us out.

What more a better life lesson, I could learn other than being humble to others. I agree, we need to be better equipped while being on highway, but believe me, being humble tops the list.

We do belittle people for being fat, for being overweight, looking ugly, but yes, when the time comes, being fat, being ugly and other characteristics take a back seat. what matters most is humility and the ability to get things done and I am sure none of the characteristics we consider or make fun of are even close to getting things done.

I hope this incident lingers in my mind again and again, so that I can help do whatever I can to others, I will always regret not being a doctor or a soldier, but I will try to help!

Cheers,

When fellow travelers were Ravichandran fans - TTTT 26

Its been a year since I had written about a radio program on big 92.7 FM. It was Straight hits with V Ravichandran. The show no longer is aired. It used to have repeated songs from movies of Ravichandran but we were so adjusted to the songs, to the voice of the host V Ravichandran that Silkboard traffic was never an issue because we felt it was over shadowed by this radio program.

Ever since this program is off air lots of things have changed, our company no longer sponsors an AC transport / Innova, so our cab got split plus few members of our organization left, couple of others were laid off. So with no options left, we just manage to crib while passing through silkboard.

The reason why I am writing this is because, yesterday, we had a bunch of folks on board our vehicle who were fans of Ravichandran including the driver.  They were asking for Ravichandran songs to be played repeatedly. Almost many songs from his movies were being played yesterday, which reminded me of the golden period of 80's and of course golden period of our company where in we had AC transport, good funding.

But yes things change, people grow older, people move apart, organizations split up, fall apart, all that remains is memories,

Cheers,

PS - I think some of the best movies/music used to come out prior to this decade or two! I agree there were only love stories, no complicated plots, but with advancement of technology, things no longer are simpler, so are movies and their plots, so are lyrics and music!

When I was stranded on a highway, in a leopard / bear territory - TTTT 25

I could have written this as a part of the previous post, but surely its an interesting encounter to write about it in a new post.

Be it a myth or be it truth, this one surely counts as one spooky episode.

I was stranded on a highway at 2.30 in the morning and by the time we got to move from that place it was 8 30 am. Meanwhile, at around 7 30 am the only small shop on the highway opened. The village was  a kilometer from the main road and this was the only shop which was around.

We had spent the entire night roaming around the main road, sleeping inside the van and then sitting in front of campfire waiting for help to arrive.

So when the shop opened, they asked us how did we manage to spend time in the night, we told them about campfire etc etc, they gave us a big surprise.

They told the area was a bear territory, also recently a leopard had given birth and was roaming around in this place, surely, this gave goosebumps, but considering we had campfire we thought we were lucky enough.

But rest of the time, when I was roaming around the highway along the night before we setup the campfire, we were just plain lucky not to encounter any animals!

Cheers,

When I was stranded on a highway - TTTT 24

There are many such tales, about which I can write, but I tend to skip them owing to laziness, lesser time. But this one happened today morning at 2 am and I am still fresh enough to write this.

I had traveled to Gokarna over the weekend to take part in the beach trek. Before we reached Gokarna our vehicle (Tempo traveller) tyre just burst out, leaving us with one tyre to spare only.

When the we saw the spare tyre which we had, I was doubtful, if something went wrong, we would be stranded on the highway and believe me it happened. The driver was careless and overconfident enough not go have got the tyre fixed over the weekend!

Today morning at 2:30 am, we were 3 hours from Bangalore and somewhere near Nittur our vehicle tyre just got flat again.

In the middle of the road at 2:30 am in the morning, we had no option but to park the vehicle to the side. The driver took out the wheel looking out for a puncture shop at 2 am in the morning.

All the while, we were waiting for him to come back, we had managed to setup a campfire somewhere next to our vehicle and few of us managed to sleep of just to pass time.

The driver eventually came back around 6 30 am with a used 15 inch wheel instead of the usual 16 inch wheel. The old wheel was just unusable.

Meanwhile, due to usage of parking lights plus few other bulbs (to warn on coming traffic of our parked vehicle) the vehicle battery completely went dry. We tried to push the vehicle and get it running but it just refused to start.

We tried to stop few oncoming vehicles and ask them for jumper cable, but no one on the highway had a big jumper cable, finally, we got hold of a number of a gentleman, who would bring on his tractor and bring a jumper cable to start our TT.

We got our vehicle up and running by around 8 30 am, all in all we were stranded on the highway for a good 6 hours from 2 30 am to 8 30 am in the morning.

Had to skip office but never mind, one more experience!

Is that so

Its common for me to read few articles mentioning people who have accumulated wealth by unethical means. In-fact, there were many such articles in the past few weeks.

I was wondering, if the accumulation of wealth by unethical/illegal means, then how do we define people who make money by social engineering or social networking.

Assume, I wish to buy a travel bag, and I end up searching an online seller for some of the models available. Once I am done with my searching, I decide not to buy (or may be buy).

But one thing I have noticed is, the advertisements of this bag and bag seller appearing on every other website which I browse in future. This can be related to other items you shop online too.

So all in all, the owner of the website who is giving advertisement space is making money. There are millions of websites and each website which portrays this advertisement gets paid.

But for me the end user, its helpful or not, I will not be judgemental, but making money by force feeding advertisements, where in you follow up every user's every online footprint to market and make sure he buys into your crap, hmmm, is this any less compared to the people who make money illegally?

Selling your online email and mobile number to a marketing campaigner for money, (without knowledge of the individual) is this not making money unethically? I agree there exists some terms and conditions where this shall be covered.

Each user click counts and every where online advertisement campaigns have cropped up and there is  new division of engineering called Data Mining, deep neural network, Internet of things, Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning etc etc.

To conclude, I just want to analyze if doing a business is a form of cheating? Can one individual never grow rich without fooling others or looting others?

Cheers,

PS - If a person follows us everywhere with or without some intention, we end up making a complaint, same way, can't we complain to someone about these force fed marketing campaigns, I agree, we can block advertisements, but aren't there more stringent options to take people to task, so that this whole ecosystem spawning social engineering/machine learning/artificial intelligence, junk selling is put to a side track!