Living once again…this New Year

So guys, I believe the New Year bash is finally over. After spending around a week in wrapping up 2011, rewinding all the important as well as beautiful things it brought by, making your houses as well as minds clutter-free, resolving the dilemma of making New Year Resolutions or not, having good food, fun and frolic, sending and receiving so many New Year wishes across friends and family, and above all, spending a lazily luxurious Sunday at the start of this fabulous year 2012, you might be back to the normal lives now.

Like most of you, the only words I could hear/read in this time is – HAPPY NEW YEAR. It seems as if everybody is programmed to utter those words before beginning any conversation or write them on their pages to do their bit; their bit in wishing that the current year brings all the joys and happiness to you, that your dreams may come true, that you make all success in this current year.

But you also know well, happiness doesn’t come solely through wishes. Being simply happy for the rest of the year, is not an easy game. It requires certain efforts on our part too. Although I had shared this post last year on the ways to stay happy, I believe, by now, you too might have made certain efforts in the earlier years of your lives, understanding what all can make you happy.

But this year, come forward to understand what takes you aback, what spoils your peace of mind. See why you become vulnerable to the situations and how you allow them to pre-dominate and encroach on your time. Hence, before focusing on other targets that you have lined up for this year, strike at the very basic necessity of living better. Learn to let go, to forgive; whether it’s somebody else or you, yourself. Make an actual new start this new year. Promise yourself to be stronger than the situations, to at least not let petty things overwhelm you and your peace, to not let them drain out your new energy and enthusiasm.

I am sure this de-cluttering, this unloading of resentments can let you focus 100% on the things that are genuinely important, that can make a difference in your lives indeed. Only then, those hundreds and thousands of wishes will work wonders.

To let a happy start to my New Year, I pampered us with this rich Vanilla Fruit and Nut Cake made at home. After all, they say You Live, Only Once. Then why not live happily.

One Year:expressed-by-words

The New Year Day is yet 16 days away, then which one year I am referring to? Since you clicked the title to read this post, by now, you might have a fair idea of what the rest of post is all about.

That’s right, it was one year back that I posted something on this space. Although my husband was pressing upon me since long  to start-up a blog and write about our excursion to the Indian heritage in Agra and Fatehpur Sikri, accounting for the delicacy and artistry, we caught a glimpse of. But I was not very sure, if I wanted to have a blog, if I had any plans to continue it further and even if I do, what all I’ll be posting about.

But sometimes it is better not to Begin With The End In Mind . Because at such times, you are destined to undergo something as blissful as my experience with expressbywords.

Refinement of random thoughts

Once I framed the first draft of our journey, composed it with all that we actually felt there, refined those early drafts with suitable vocabulary and grammar, transformed the entire experience into words and posted it on the web, it was such a pleasure looking at that self-written post again and again. And then followed the obvious-’an addiction to this pleasure‘.

Unlike journal-ling, this process has somehow created a few preserve-able pieces of writing, which I can cherish throughout my life. Because it’s not merely emptying the contents of mind on paper and that is why it didn’t need to be burnt away or torn into pieces.

Keener observation

Now things don’t simply pass across my mind. Rather, a natural process of ‘being analyzed automatically’ has inculcated into the mechanism and the worthwhile are kept for further consideration .

And as someone has said ’90% perfect and published always changes more lives than 100% perfect and stuck in your head’. So it further encourages to get keener on observing the world around. Also, I stated long back-“I have so many thoughts and I need to communicate them” And today for me, things are not expressed well unless they are expressed-by-words.

The new connections

The best of all is the new kind of bonds it created, whether the people I already knew or those whom I never met, with the people who are like-minded or what Marya calls as her own tribe. So I won’t miss this chance to thank you all-in whatever way you’re connected to expressbywords, I am glad and thankful that you devoted your precious time here.

In this one year, expressbywords has become a ‘Way of Life’ to me. And I hope and I wish it goes way ahead further for many more years and takes much more beautiful shape. As of now, let’s celebrate this happy occasion with a chocolate or anything else that you like to have. Once again, heartiest thanks to you all.

All I can hear around is…ANNA

It has already been 10 days now and all I can hear everywhere around is “Anna”. Although we are very well familiar with various incidents whose fervor comes up and stays for a while, keeping people and media occupied with their updates; sometimes it is Cricket World Cup or the terror strikes, Commonwealth games or the never-ending scams, train accidents or the ever rising food & petrol prices. Things keep coming, staying and going away, leaving their own mark.

Spreads of corruption

This time it is Anna Hazare and ‘the indefinite hunger strike’ against the evil that has plagued every nook and corner of our system. This time voice has raised again and I must say-it’s loud, quite loud.

And why should it not be? It’s so pervasive, so well-spread. All of us know, how things function, right from the bottom-most till the topmost level, but that is all ‘off-the-record’. A cop might be getting bribed with a hundred-rupee-note, but what about those Swiss bank accounts and massive scams in the name of our politicians, whom we select by casting our precious votes. People who have spent more years in this system than me, might be able to explain better, might have seen this more closely.

It’s all about the difference between ‘on-the-records’ and ‘off-the-records’. On record, it might be a polished and world’s largest democracy,  a developing nation making leaps of progress, with its properly organized Parliamentary set-up. But off the records, tell me, who does not know that it’s far easier to bribe off the cop and move on rather than standing in long queues and paying challans. And if, in any case, you don’t know that, they’ll themselves apprise you of the fact when you’re caught guilty on road. Instead of getting your projects stuck in everlasting pipeline, it’s fine to pay under the table and get approvals. People shy away in getting FIR lodged and getting into legal matters because getting into circles with the system, it is much more convenient to compromise there and then.

So it’s right when they say, “our system is corrupt by design”. That is one of the major reasons why people leave India and settle abroad to live a better life-standard, to get rid of this mess, where life is tooooo difficult.

It is all so disappointing, so very depressing.

The Anna debate

In this scenario, it is no wonder if organizations come up and proposals like Jan Lokpal come up to fight away the bug of corruption. After all, people are either totally  infuriated or profoundly frustrated by now. They have well understood that they cannot get the things done in a straight way. But because they don’t have as much patience to keep fighting, as Mr. Hazare has shown, hence this bug is spreading much exponentially.

All through these 10 days, India has witnessed so many opinions for and against the “so-called movement”. On one hand, there are masses who have struck the roads to show their  support to this anti-corruption move. There are discussions going on everywhere; whether it is news channels, newspapers, magazines, blogs or even people live, applauding Anna Hazare and his team. On the other hand, we come across some poignant other-side stories, viewpoints that totally criticize the whole stand taken. Above all, people are coming up with their respective viewpoints and suggestions. That is why they are calling it a revolutionary movement and at the same time, an ego-fight too.

I fail to understand how a mid-way will be arrived at when every person has some different opinion. If Janlokpal is not a magic wand to remove corruption then this is also obvious that decision makers are going to let it be their way, at least keeping scope for the loopholes from where they can keep working, keep running their lavish households.

It’s difficult to say what it will ultimately result into but one thing is sure-it’s becoming a patent Indian style-delaying things, keep them lingering on, so they may settle down on their own, so they may fade away.

What is the way out?

I don’t know about other people, about other nations, the only thing I m feeling at the moment is-a pain, a stress-of all that is going on. All the hullabaloo that’s getting created, the way things are getting more and more sticky and hopeless.

Being a common man, what all can you do? In the current system, it’s only the government, you can look up to. And right now, my question is: if this is not the way, then what else? What else could be more powerful and if it is possible, then why it has not come up till date?

Some things I never want to forget

Four years back too, similar were the days. I was counting down the number of days left to join my new job, my first job. I had been fortunate enough, like many others, to secure it during my graduation. Although there was ample time to make a decision-either to join the job at hand or to look for another career option, but the notably tempting idea of working with the largest real estate company in India, was imperative enough to not to choose otherwise.

I was already undergoing my internship and the idea of turning more self-sustaining was far more inviting. Extensive planning and budgeting had already begun to let it all be immaculate. Making all due arrangements for our stay in the new city, me and my friend were all thrilled to kick-start a new chapter. After completing our Bachelors in Architecture, we bachelorette were on the brink of living a crazy life in a newly rented apartment-cooking our own food, washing our own clothes, cleaning, grocery shopping, paying our own utility bills-in short leading our own lives.

After a three-day induction, where we were given such a lavish guest treatment ( I am talking about food and stay. As students you are not accustomed to such things, but some long lectures were undoubtedly mundane), we officially became the part of the grand group, joined our new office and started it off.

In the initial months, we were busy getting introduced, understanding ways and systems, getting used to the daily routine of coming to office and at times, bunking office too  And back home, the new home I already explained, life was much more happening. Weekends had acquired all the new significance. Thanks to the regime of back-to-back late night movies, cold drink and chips parties, dining out and hanging out with friends. Eventually new friends added up to my circle, from our office, and started the modus-operandi of parantha parties at nearby dhaba, after lunch walks, birthday cakes, tea breaks and much more. A whole new world was being created and everything there was so impromptu.

At intervals, taking leaves and visiting my parents made those visits much more eventful. It made me recognize the value of Holidays calendar. Soon two years passed by and now many of my colleagues-turned-friends had started switching their jobs. By now, I had started feeling more responsible about my work, more involved into it and above all enjoying all that. From our huge gang, many people left but meeting them outside the office gave us another reason to have some get-together which nobody chose to miss.

All these things led to a smooth transition from student-hood to real adult-hood to self-sustaining-hood to married-hood. Today, I am all set in this phase of my life, heading towards more and more stability. And now, when I am again undergoing another countdown to leave for my next job, I realized I couldn’t snatch this credit away from the first one. I can mention, all that it has done to me professionally, during my farewell next week. But how could I explain  this difference, it has made in my life?

The ritual of watching Cricket World Cup

Yes, you read it right. It’s not about playing cricket, it’s about watching cricket.

Dale Carnegie says ‘Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something’ in his bestseller How to win friends and influence people. Hary A. Overstreet in his illuminating book Influencing Human Behavior said ‘Action springs out of what we fundamentally want’.

This is about the people who specialize in human behavior. One of our colleagues was also preaching one day ‘Nobody in this world, does anything unless until they have some personal interest in it.’ We, in general also know that our time is very precious, especially in busy world like today. But I really wonder what power this cricket beholds? How come it can manage to let so many busy souls out there throughout the world, particularly in India, stay glued to their television screens, while their team is playing. Despite the fact, that a plenty of variety of cricket tournaments are there now. But the World Cup fever doesn’t even seem to fade, let apart die.

If you have some urgent work on a day when India is playing, don’t worry, go out hurriedly and you can come back within half the time it usually takes. There is no traffic on the road on a match-day (this is obvious, but still tried and tested ).

One of my friends even posted that “Facebook should be renamed to cricket-book…Ppl like me who hate 50+50 overs match should leave it for a day”.

Movies still allure a particular age group or interest-group, but cricket…it can charm all categories: whether they are school-going lads or matured busy people of my father’s age. My father – he’s very particular about time, doesn’t waste it in watching television or movies. But even he can manage to leave aside or else complete his important work in advance, so that he can spare some time to see India playing. PVRs prefer to play cricket match during the World Cup than movies and people do buy tickets for the same.

And the best of all is: everyone has a piece of advice for every player and every ball-how should the bowler throw the ball at a particular situation, how the fielder should avoid boundaries, how the batsman should hit hard, or any other important playing strategies during the whole match-everyone has a fair idea/suggestion for those professional players too.

Is that funny? Is that crazy? Is that too much? I can not say, I don’t have an idea. But yes, people forget to see friends, people forget to call families when it is the question of a cricket world cup match. I am not too fanatic about cricket, but I also, enjoy the last few decisive overs. I too, don’t shy away from saying ‘abe catch pakad’ or ‘abe chauka rok’. This excitement is unparalleled. Just a few minutes ago, I saw an outstanding cricket match, although we lost it.

I never thought I will write something about sports (as I am least interested in the same). But the whole cricket season is so overwhelming, I couldn’t resist writing this post.