Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Being Amitabh Bachchan

No.. I haven't started acting. Unlike rest of professionals I was very sure from school days, acting is not a my cup of tea. I do love watching characters developed on screen and real life scenarios. Sometime in school days I was hypnotized by angry young man -- Amitabh Bachchan. But I was sure I loved him more because of his characters in his movies. Days passed, watching movies become regular and you slowly shifts towards English movies because of travel, story, technical effect etc. I little bit lost track of AB career when I was out of India.

Few years back, he started writing blog and I really felt instantly connected to him because I never expected direct connection to fan. Best part of his blog is we can comment on it and I am glad he has occasionally replied to my comments. I started following him on blog and noticed that because of him my life has changed immensely.

Because of his blog remembered  one weird movie "Being John Malkovich" in which one person virtually enters into head of famous actor and then he can see/feel what  actor is doing for few minutes. I liked the story but really felt it's very weird. What this has to do with BigB's blog? One thing is sure like movie, I get access of his life for few minutes -- I get chance to see his way of thinking, his ethics, standards and above all I get to see world through his eyes. He travels around glob because of his profession and with him I also get free ride with him. Because of him I was able to see fantastic places at kanyakumari, Paris, NY, Rome without tiring myself.

I just wish he keeps blogging for many many years!

Monday, July 26, 2010

Class War

We live in different worlds even though we are habitated on single planet -- earth.  In school days it took years for me to understand caste system at our town since we lived in priviledged campus of college area. Apart from college activities there was not many other activities involved so couldn't able to know that people are borned in particular work related families.

College, job where you start understanding depth of caste system since you get to know how many seats are "reserverd" for YOU. Depending on what category you are you start blaming your failure at admission based on your caste. Whatever admission you get in, you look forward since you have college and think that this can only happen in India.

This perception also changes when you step out of India, you start watching discrimination based on race, nationality, religion, gender. Even so called developed countries are not behind it, if not rest of discrimination but based on financial status -- social classes do exist. So we can safely assume that we live in classified world.

Once we are aware of this classified world, our approach throughout our life is fight for our own "class" be it our belief, way of thinking, cooking, talking. We try to admently stick it to preserve our class. Once this happen within family also class war begins...  for trivial matters. It is very important to understand person - "class"wise before interacting with him.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Respecting History

HISTORY.. how often we love our history or sometime hates it because some of incident are not good. Anybody loves royal, wealthy, gallant  lineage but it is matter of chance which family we born. This is just our genetic history. Even if we are not born in particular great family there are so many historical and existing people who are masters in their own field and we can always learn something from them. One of the towering example is Gandhiji and values he followed..self sufficient,  persistence, mind controlled , non violence.

Apart from people  there are so many systems which we get for FREE because of history.

Town we live in. Town we live is not overnight built, there has to have some kind of activities so that people get attracted to place. I was always amazed by growth of Mumbai, New York, Chicago. How many people in past must have contributed to reach such metropolis? Planning such a large population on restricted area is difficult.
Same is true with food, cloth we use. How many trial and error humans might have gone through to come with each culture's eating habits. They might have died tasting some poisonous fruit!

Friday, July 16, 2010

Motivation

How much motivation takes part in our daily lives? We generally don't notice it because of everyday work involving our struggle. Mo matter how intellectual, talented you are, without motivation, energy and little bit of vision you won't lead a life which you dream of.

We trend make our day based on routine and past experience. Failure in past damages our confidences to bottom. This is where motivation -- self or induced (like religious following, mentor )  plays big role. How we tackle moment of depression is most important decision of life. If we remain remorseful, eventually we will lead to abyss of depression while remaining cheerful and motivated at least can reduce ill effect of depression as well as give us second chance to do something.

Generally we are very realistic person and try to see things or events in very practical purpose but we notice few optimistic things  in world and even pessimistic can feel optimistic. Be it story of handicapped achieving success at work, sport etc or some poor student achieving   great success at academic circle.

Recently I came across similar type of story of motivation. One of my cousin who studied in remote ancestral village is flying to USA for job! I know now a days going to work abroad is not a big deal with information technology, but which path someone follows is key. Someone has personal link, business contacts  etc. but with my cousin everything was self made .. lost her father while she was studying, so not much family support. Manage her own marriage etc, lost abroad opportunity because of .com burst, but she never stopped, she kept on working and motivating her self and now she is in USA.

Her path could have been anything but this one if she had lost her motivation at any struggling period of her life and could have ended up in my own ancestral village worrying about shortage of water!!

Saturday, July 10, 2010

S.T.

Sometimes we don't really appreciate which see ordinary and obvious. In fact we get irritated to see ordinary, common things around us. It is true with Maharashtra State Transport. I never enjoyed it or at least till date. When I was child long journey to my ancestral place by ST would take 12 HOURS .. I would never able to eat anything because of smell in ST and always worried about throwing up.. Later during college days going from Pune to hometown was big hassle because crowded buses and stops it will take.. and suddenly one day ST was vanished from my life because of job outside state. Even after returning back to state because of car couldn't get chance to go by bus. Now a days driving car has become taxing to my knees and started to look for alternative.

So I started going by ST again.. and I noticed few things which I never able to noticed in college days.

1. People: We get chance to see locals very closely. Most of the time they will be following their local culture .. dress, language. Just listening to so many dialects of Marathi is melodious to ear. Some old traditional dress will remind you not existing old family members.

2. Demographics variation is very even in ST we almost forget our own age watching it.

3. When you go to very remote areas, ST bus will stay overnight.. if you don't have any safe place for accommodation (especially for trekking ) ST is safest place to sleep overnight.

4 .and finally Network of ST is amazing.. it almost goes to very remote parts of Maharashtra.. according to Wikipedia 16,000 buses,17,000 routes and 70 lakh passengers daily. I feel ST needs it due recognition for such a massive operation along side with Mumbai Local

Sunday, July 4, 2010

(Not) Best Of Both World

One of my best friend is planning to come back from USA after staying there for 12 years. With american citizenship,JOB all his friends asking him to stay back!!But right now he looks firm to come back for a while, rest of us are very sure you will go back with in few months.

He might have his own personal reasons to come back but what intrigue me more is global phenomenon, people are just not happy where they stay.. Western civilization has few things to give while indian has it's own. It might be little less compare to US but we really not able to compare much if someone has rest of family here. In this case no matter how you manage to stay any place, something from other place always keep you calling and as usual not having that very moment cause immense dissatisfaction.

I think our generation who stayed both places for more than 2 years never able to satisfied since they are never able to get best out of both world.. and ultimately end up getting worse out of both world.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

CTR+ALT+DEL

How many times we get up and feel like life should have CTL+ALT+DEL, so
that we can delete all mess caused in our past life. Day after day, month
after month, year after year we carry baggage of wrong decisions we made,
associations we choose. Fact of life is thre is no hard reset button to it. But
we can try some of soft resets ..
1. Finish the transactions as early as possible be it business or emotional
turmoil.
2. Carry forward good memories from past, remove evidence which causes you trouble
like bad events etc.
3. Find like minded people. This is tough since with age people also changes, so do us.
So once upon good friend may not be good today.
4. Bank on positive thoughts and deed.
5. NEXT GENERATION : Here is our altimate solution to our CTL+ALT+DEL, if we can keep AWAY OUR
PERCEPTION of world/life from them, we can see result of CTL+ALT+DEL with our next generation.