Filed under: Travelogue
Grasmere Lake
12th Feb,2011, is a memorable day in my life not because I had my first trek in UK, but it was more of a journey towards my self discovery. It was in my school days when my teacher once said “Keep walking and you will be happy”. Since then I started enjoying the long walks. Walking gave me some time to fill my mind with newer ideas, I don’t know how it all started but very soon I started to enjoy thinking while walking. Whenever I used to feel upset I used to go for a long walk down the Ganges and the nearby paddy fields that used to relax my fears and inhibitions as a kid.
The Lake district trip on 12/2 was one of these trips which inspired me a lot. For those who are not familiar with Lake District – this was the abode of the famous English poet William Wordsworth, where he wrote the poem Daffodils
“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”
When after a busy day’s work 10 of us drove down for 6 hours to Ambleside Hostel in the early hours of morning, we had no idea of what was in store for us the next day. We were warmly greeted by David, our hostel in charge, during breakfast the next day morning, David suggested us to take the trek to Grasmere via Loughrigg and so off we set for a trek. Initially, it was hard convincing all of my friends who were not keen on a trek, but soon four of us took the lead. As we climbed higher and higher we started to find ourselves mesmerized by the beauty of the nature. The next day we visited the Airaforce Waterfall, followed by Pencil Museum and trip to Buttermere lake. Our journey was not complete until we offered our prayers to Lord Balaji at Balaji temple at Birmingham.
I returned from the trip with the thought in my mind which Thomas Szasz once said, “We often come across situations in which we realize that we have not found our true self. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates. Our journey to self discovery never ends”.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Filed under: Uncategorized
Wish all of your friends and every person in this world Happy New Year 2010. I just read Paul Coelho’s “Like the flowing River” and thought of sharing the following narrative adapted from his book.
Living in the 3 world
Our life is a symphony composed of three distinct movements “a lot of people”, a “few people” and “almost no one”. Each of this lasts about four months a year; although there is often a little of each during one particular month, they never get confused.
“A lot of people” is when we are perhaps in our workplace busily interacting with multiple people in various meetings. “A few people” may happen when we go back to our native village and meet up with old friends. Go for a stroll with them but mostly stay at home.
Apart from the above two worlds we are mostly in our own dream world – with “almost no one” – this is the world of our creativity, we can do so many things in this particular time. If we are in the country side we can began our day with music of the birds chirping, have breakfast , go out for walk, and the enjoy the fields of maize and hay , we may like to wander in the mountains unlike the “lot of people movement” here we never think who I am but live entirely in the present moment and relish it.
But we can’t stay in this “almost no one” state for long, the moment we are connected to the misty world of internet, we are again back to the world of “a lot of people”. But it is important that we give ourselves the choice of living in the three worlds. In the words of Paul Coelho : “ I work for several hours , because that is my choice, because that is my personal legend, because a warrior of light knows his duties and responsibilities . But during the “almost no one” movement , everything on the computer screen seems very far away, just as living in the country side seems like a dream when I’m caught up in the other movements – “a lot of people” and “ a few people”. I ask myself how can I coexist in these three different worlds on one day , I have no answer, but I know that it gives me great deal of pleasure, and that I am happy in each of the three worlds “
In this new year lets make a promise that while we live in each of this 3 worlds with -“A lot of people”, “A few people” and “almost no one” like Paul did , we too cherish our experiences in the 3 worlds with happiness and peace and don’t let the flower of creativity and enthusiasm stop blossoming in our mind and spirit.
Best Wishes,
“It was a very long day of work, Rohit glanced at his watch , yes it was 7:30 pm, his weekly report to his boss in Boston was still pending, there were yet couple of priority mails he need to respond. He couldn’t believe the day has passed off so soon even though he started working early at 8 am. If only God had given him two more hands and one pair of extra brain . He always envied how his fellow colleagues Hari and Michael left office everyday at 5 pm and managed to play tennis. ” What is it that I am missing ? ” he asked himself. His doctor appointment he has been postponing since last two weeks , he had been failing on his promise to take his family out for a dinner since the last two week.”
How many a time did we find ourselves in the shoes of Rohit’s dilemma. I guess its quite often for many of us given the fast pace of our life to find ourselves in this puzzling situation. Inspite of working hard , we find ourselves caught up in this time pressure , we seem to find no enjoyment in the work we do rather tie ourselves in the web of stress , fatigue and mental exhaustion. Is there a way around ? I guess the answer is “yes if I really want to ” . I came across one such shining example of one of my earlier mentor Senthil in this regard. Senthil was heading a team of 200 members and was flooded with requests, emails both from his customers and internal teams. It was at this time he was going through a personal tragedy which was regarding the poor health of his mother. But in the midst of all of this , he chose to remain calm and managed a smiling face . Not only he delivered all that his job demanded from him, but he remain focussed and maintained excellent working relationship with everyone in his team. I know it is not possible for everyone of us to be like Senthil , But its worth reminding ourselves of how much we can push ourselves in such difficult situations, remember beyond every dark cloud there is a “silver lining”.
Robin was sleeping …..but then he woke up one day and found that everything around him has changed..the road which he complained was muddy and full of stones has become suddenly bright and shiny, the papers he hated in his exams unexpectedly he found himself grasping and remembering every bit of it . The food he hated in the corner shop all of a sudden seemed so tasty….the chrous he listened sleepily in the church dramatically seemed so melodius…..Was he awake ? or Was he dreaming ?
Many of us has perhaps become “Robin” many a time, we see ourselves in mirror everyday but what the mirror fail to capture our state of awakeness, sometimes the gloomy world completely engulfs us and make our small failures seem bigger than they are, this makes us feel shattered and hopeless. But its important we wake up our mind from the shackles of our failures and look at the bright pictures life has painted for us mixing a tingle of positive yellow, creative green, imaginative sky blue and reddish sunrise.
Lets wake up every moment from the thought of our failures !
On 23rd March, 7 am, we launched our Career Refining Portal: www.getsetgrow.org It was indeed a very great ocassion for us , Finally after getting stuck in the planning phase for 7 months we could move ahead with the prototype and release of version 1.
Our current task is to work all round by collecting the requirement list of all potential students/working freshers for whom the site is dedicated to. Well, we are not yet near to what we want to achieve , but everyone of our volunteering team is ambitious and dreams to make it one of the most useful sites for students ,working people.
I would request you to visit our site and help us make it Grow by giving your valuable ideas.
Cheers!
Let’s Get..Set and..Grow!
It is a paradox of life that perhaps the most interesting people is found in most unusual place. Yes , it was one of this places where I met Joeb. Aged 20, height 167 cm , fair complexion – this lad has a uniqueness difficult to find. He introduces his customers with a big smile “How can I help you ?” , soon the customer would be Joeb’s very good friend for the next few minutes. Joeb likes to make light humour and ensures his customers are in good spirit and highly satisfied by his service such that they do not mind tipping him a few extra pounds. Well, you might be wondering what is Joeb’s profession ? Well, by profession this Mauritian boy is a Hair dresser , he runs his dads shop for some hours of the day located near Plashet Grove. Needless to mention his shop is full with customers of all ages during the few hours in which he is serving. On my appreciation of his positive attitude, he stated “I know people are always with lots of worries and they get less time to feel relax , I take it up as a mission to make my customers forget some of their worries in the 5-10 minutes of their life they are spending with me” . He credits his skills to his trainer Tony Longman in London. This boy, fluent in french, english and hindi, has a good career plan. He plans to work for few hours in his dad’s shop while completing his graduation at college. Later he plans to work as an apprentice and dreams to be a fashion designer someday.
Back in India , I recall of my similar experiences , I miss the Joeb effect very much, Yes it is much cheaper in India for similar service but alas there is no Tony Longman available in India to train the hair dressers and also motivate them to think big like Joeb does…!!!
Very often I am confused of the pace in which ones life goes on, when I was a kid my goal was to study hard and stand first in class ; unfortunately I could never achieve that 
, gradually I grew up to be a youth and reached college, our focus was now to grab the best job by preparing well for campus interviews, suddenly one day I discovered that I was working in a mnc and most of our focus have changed to working harder and getting a better appraisal rating with better salary hike . If I could have a “Pause” button in my life and ask myself these questions : “Is my life Rocking ?” ,” What I need to do, to make my life Rocking ?” , I find myself struggling to find an answer . Well, after watching the movie “Rock On ” , this was the question I asked myself today. I guess, many of us like me , might be feeling that we are lost in our own small circle of life which mostly includes our work and family. Is that a problem ? The answer could be both “yes” and “no” . “No” because few of us are everyday fighting through many constraints and perhaps there are no choices other than focussing on the small circle. Again the answer could be “yes” to many of us including me, who have many choices but rather than focussing on making things happen are happy and contented with our small circle.
I recall reading few years back, that Sir Thomas Alva Edision had so many ideas coming in his mind that he had to maintain a Diary tracking all his ideas. Even after his death it was discovered that there were another Diary of Ideas still untouched but on which he could not work upon. Inspite of suffering through partial hearing loss in his early childhood, he has gifted us with the electric bulb and other devices and also laid the foundation stone of GE. Imagine if Sir Thomas Alva Edision had time to work on his unfulfilled ideas possibly, who knows , the world could have been gifted with some other path-breaking discoveries.
Looking back at our lives today, I see ideas dying every day and every moment in our daily life !!! Not that all ideas can be implemented , but I think we should have faith in ourself and push ourselves for making some progress in our ideas which we think are brilliant, are immensely passionate about implementing and mostly will gift us with the uncherised joy of achievment, one misses everyday. It could be any childhood idea which one could have dreamt of any associated ourselves proudly with it. It may not have much necessity today when we are lost in our own small circle of life, but it really matters a lot to us if we really implement it and manage to make it happen. I think thats the moment when we are “Rocking on in our life ” !!!
Its been few months now that I have been travelling in London Tube , and everyday I experience something which is my first time in life 
. My todays experience was meeting someone dressed as one of our ancient soldiers . Dressed in black high heeled shoes with a leather belt and body -pierced in ears , eyes, nose our Mr Brave , aged about 40, sat down coolly sporting visible muscles, apparently oblivious of the silent stares generated among his curious fellow passengers. I admired his high sense of modern fashion , he had a dyed brownish hair erupting from back of his bald head and extending till his waist over his greenish robe. Only missing thing was perhaps his sword. My eyes could not stop rolling over him 
. I regretted missing my camera 
else it would have fetched a good photogenic moment.. This made me think that organizing a Rapid-fire fashion show in London tube and giving spot awards for the most interesting dressed ones can be a great business idea. Anyone ready to sponsor this ? 
The most visible sight about tube commuters is reading books and magazine. Coming from a different country, I find this a good cultural symbol. Even in the rush hour in the morning, I find girls mostly lost in two things, one their beauty-kit or reading a last bit of their crime thriller squeezing between two already pressed passengers. The men I find mostly sleeping 
or glancing through “Metro”, the daily tabloid.
The tube drivers I guess are the most courteous of all. For every minute of a delay in journey, they apologise to the passengers 3 times. There is one line in London tube which I guessed have heard a million times by now. Guess the Line !…….Well it is the line “Mind the Gap”. I remember on my initial arrival days I use to feel intrigued by the fact “ why they are repeating the single line so many times ? ” I have seen 5 times more gap between the train and the station in my country, but never there was ever an announcement being made for that.
The advertisements in the tube are really cool ones . The advertisements claim to do wonders they can help anyone overweight to reduce their weight 50% in 30 days. 
. Whether you have a broken roof, u need a blind date , need a lowest cost car insurance , or beautifying your body parts , there is a solution for all. Luckily I did not think of verifying those yet.
Overall it is a good experience for me and I look forward for posting my new stories soon
