Pray, Eat, Laugh!

It was an experience of a life time. We boarded the train at 12:20am. After a little chit chat and pet puja one uncle asked us where we are going. We told him that we are going to Nasik. This was a moment of extreme happiness for him and the very next moment he said with a  firm voice  “hum bhi jaa rahe hai Nasik, ab main so raha hoon utha dena mujhe”..well this can happen only in India. When we went to our berths to take a nap we got irritated when he made sure that we have set an alarm to wake us (specifically him) up!!

Within a few hours we reached Nashik Road station. It was 4:00am and it still looked as mid night.We got down the train with our eyes loaded with a LOT of sleep. We had to go to a bus depot from where we can get a bus to Trembakeshwar. The best part starts here. We decided to take an Auto to the bus depot. It was a shared Auto. We three girls occupied the main seat of the Auto. The Autowala waited for another passenger. We thought he will take one more..but  bhai  ye to incredible India hai..he took 4 more passengers !! So at the back with us one Uncle sat near Shruti ,who tried to sit on quarter of his bum so that he do not make any physical contact with her (RESPECT !!). 

With the Autowala there were three more people sitting near him out of which one wanted to occupy the seat near us but could not and he was constantly trying to check us out..I mean who can think of all this at 4-4:30 in the morning (SICK!!)

Autowala was excited to start his first ride of the day and he played GOOD music…we could not control our laughter and we still remember the lyrics of the song..”rulane to sab ayenge hasane kaun ayega..la la laa laa”  Autowala took it personally and he thought “ I am also a dude, and these girls making fun of my music..now time for some new released song.!” And here comes the song “Ye hai Zila Gaziabaad..ye hai zila gaziabaad.”  We were no more in sleepy mode, all thanks to this paisa wasool auto ride.

The Auto halted at a place, it was still dark and there was no one else apart from three of us. We just missed the first bus to Trembakeshwar. Within another 5 minutes another bus came. The conductor was shouting Trembakeshwar and we three got into that bus. The bus looked very old and shabby as if it was running since the time of British rule. The bus waited for a while and collected enough passengers to start the journey to the holy Trembakeshwar Temple.

The bus was too old, too old to run but it was somehow holding all its parts together and as the driver makes an attempt to speed up, it would move every piece it has. The ride was too shaky and no matter how many times we tried closing our eyes to take a nap, it was futile.  At times we felt that the bus would collapse and we will fall off!!

We reach Trembakeshwar , it was cold and dark. Before taking the Auto to Pandit Ji’s house we sipped in some tea quickly. Pandit Ji greeted us with a smile and gave Instructions  about how we have to take bath in that pious Kund  before starting the Puja. We left our bags at his place and walked bare footed to the pious Kund. While on our way, we were gathering courage to take a dip in that Kund of ice-cold water at 6 in the morning. As we reached the Kund, it seemed that we were late and there were already umpteen numbers of people taking bath.  We grasped each other’s hands and on the count of three we did the first “Dubki ”, the feeling was beyond our measures  and  then we did another  “Dubki”. One striking thing about Indian Culture is that we are firm believer of Religion and God and go beyond our shells to practice it. I say this because, every devotee was so much in their own divine space that they had no space for any ineptness of baring themselves for the bath, be it men, women or children.

We returned to Pandit Ji’s house after the holy bath and then he clubbed us with few other devotees and took us to the Temple. The temple was beautiful, ancient and it had a mystic presence of the divine.  It is a temple where Lord Shiva is worshipped.  This temple has one of the 12 jyotirlingas. The extraordinary feature of the Jyotirlinga located here is its three faces embodying Lord Brahma, Lord Vishnu and Lord Rudra. Due to excessive use of water, the linga has started to erode. It is said that this erosion symbolizes the eroding nature of human society.

We offered our prayers to the Lord and returned for the main Puja at Pandit Ji’s place. Pandit Ji was very knowledgeable and he told us different stories of how the Temple was built and what is the significance of the place. He told many good things about God, spirituality, humans and human nature.  

After the Puja we went out for food hunt in the scorching heat of Nashik. After lunch we were too tired and sleepy and we had only two hours in Trembakeshwar before we leave the place to reach Nashik Railway Station. We went to a beautiful resort created by Birlas, but to be on the economical side we decided not to book a room and we decided to sit in their lawn. We went inside the premises of the resort and we saw many middle aged women sitting and chit chatting in the lawn. We sat near them and we were so drowsy that we finally lied down in the lawn. This was one of the firsts in our lives which we never did before our first “sleeping in an open lawn under the sun without giving a damn about the world”…haha..yeah we were that sleepy.

We woke up on time and left for the bus stop from where we can get a rick or bus to the railway station. We reached the bus stop and took an auto to go to station. The Autowala said he will take another passenger apart from us. We agreed on the condition that he should accommodate the passenger in the front seat with him. After a while he stopped the auto near a lady who was 2 and a half times my weight. She forcefully adjusted herself at the back seat with us. She said that we all are of same weight; we glanced at each other and exchanged a “are you kidding me” look. When we asked the Auto about the condition which we had posed he said the lady will get down in 2 minutes. We did not say anything at that time but we soon realized that it was around 10-15 minutes and she did not get down anywhere. We were not able to sit comfortably and at one point we asked the Auto to halt and protested his unfair bias for the lady.  The Autowala showed a lane which was like 10 steps from the place where the auto stood and said that she will get down there. We asked her to walk down but she (b***h) did not agree. The situation was getting on my nerves. I quickly sat at the front with the Autowala so that rest of them can sit comfortably at least till that lane where the lady promised to get down and commanded him to start the auto fast. My friends were impressed by my heroic move which they told me later. The lady got down within a minute, after that we realized that actually the lady had an affair with the Autowala.

After all this we reached station. We had to wait for an hour as the train was running late (typical Indian railway story). The journey was crazy and awesome. We chatted and laughed a lot, recollecting every incident starting from the first auto ride to the last one. I would say no matter what the place is and how the circumstances are, if you have company of great friends, it will always end well.

Oh My India !

This post is for those who think like me and sometime feel hopeless that they cannot do much change to this society and India as a whole.

India is a developing nation....well what about its people? Are they developing equally with time.??
I find many people who still develop judgements about others based on very illogical grounds (at least I don't think such thinking need brains!).

A popular phrase I don't know why people say for India "Unity in Diversity" is not that true for us. There are about 8-9 out of 10 people who still live by the old rules,which the Britishers did to us i.e. "Divide and Rule". Our politicians divide us by our caste or religion and make us think small. We still cast our vote as per caste!

We all are born to different regions influenced by different culture or religion. We all make friends from other regions/religions/gender but when it comes to taking crucial decisions we prefer to take it on the behalf of our own biases.. even if we know that it is not the right decision. Why is there such a gap? Why can't there be just complete fairness..!!

We have failed to think big,think beyond the boundaries of cast and culture. This has been carried out since ages and unless people start taking responsibility to correct it,it is not going to change. We still judge people by their religion and not by their nature. What is the point of being educated if education cannot break such stereotypes crawling inside us?

India faces a crisis situation with extremely ridiculous thinking leading to shameful acts like female foeticide,honour killing etc..and yes not to forget about the very famous Khap Panchayat who blames Chinese food for the increasing number of rape cases in the country( seriously!!)

No matter how much we improve our literacy rate,if we cannot judge the good and the bad fairly without any bias to gender,religion or caste, India will never progress. We need to fill  this gap ,we are loosing our strength everyday and it can be gained only with the unity of people. A unity set by fair judgement based on education and practice of the good which will have no room for biases.I don't know if it is possible at all !

Even though there is a section of the society which has unshackled itself from such biases, it is not much of a difference due to its insignificant size.India needs a BIG change in the mentality of its people so that people can freely exercise their intellect.Wish to see a boundary-less India someday..huh!

Touching the BASE :)

Generally students have the opinion that either you do nothing in an internship or you work like donkeys and get paid in peanuts. Surprisingly I was blessed not to fall on either of these two categories.

Few weeks before our internship I received an email from the company inviting me to the induction program for summer trainees. I thought that it would be a boring day where we would listen to a lengthy presentation about the company and come back but I was astonished by the way the day went. All our mentors along with the HR team were present there and we formed teams and played games and learned a good lesson about team work. The way induction was done said it all. I was highly impressed by the involvement of the company and the seriousness they displayed towards summer trainees. I was really motivated and was happy that I won’t be wasting my very important two months in this company.

The company recruited six people from our college and four of us were put into the Central Supply Chain team. We were excited and nervous on the first day in the company wondering about what our projects would be and how would be the culture of the team. We were greeted by a lovely lady who was our project guide. She made sure we are comfortable and asked us to occupy our cubicles and wait for our mentor, who happened to be the General Manager of the Supply Chain platform.  Later that day we all were assigned multiple projects based on different areas of Supply Chain.

We started working on our projects from the very next day. While our projects were reviewed every alternate day our peers in other companies were struggling to know their projects. We were blessed to get the best project guide in the whole world. She was an alumnus of our college. She used to spend all day clearing our doubts. No matter how silly a doubt I have she would always entertain. She was always there at the office. She was very dedicated and hence loved by all in the Central Supply Chain team. She was an inspiration for us and because of her good work the company has a very good image about our college.

Internship is the time when we should learn as much as we can and this actually happened for us just because of our guide and mentor. Our projects also involved interaction with different heads of the Supply Chain Team. I was amazed to experience how grounded they are and in spite of having tremendous knowledge, I never felt insignificant while interacting with them. It was a great feeling when what you do in a summer internship matters greatly to the organization.

The internship went well and during these two months we grew professionally as well as personally. The last day we had to present our projects and the learning outcomes to the Asia Pacific head of the Central Supply Chain. Everything went well and our mentor, project guide and the Transport head took us to a grand lunch treat. It was great to be treated so special.

We were told by the HR that there would be a felicitation program where all the summer trainees from different institutes would be given the completion certificate and the best summer trainee would be given an award.

It was a great day of felicitation where we all spoke about our experiences during the two months. The guest of honour was the Vice President of Marketing who shared some great experiences from his life and also gave some insights on the company. Everyone was waiting for that moment when one among the eighteen summer trainees would receive the very prestigious award of the best summer trainee. Within the next few seconds they announced a name which sounded very familiar. Suddenly my friends started patting my back and then I realized that it was my name. It was a great achievement in my life being honoured by such a giant organization.  A wave of satisfaction ran through me making me realize that my contribution is valued and appreciated.

Lets not make this world blind...

We all know the story of Pandora’s Box and how our lives revolve around that one last thing which was in it.We all have our dreams and we live each day with the hope that they will come true.Hope keeps us going and everyone in this world has hope if not anything else.                                                             

On the way of our dreams we come across many people some stay with us for a while, some stay for long and some of them act as critics. But no matter what all of them makes some contribution to our lives.

I always thought how I can find that one thing which controls our happiness and now after all these years being away from home and being with unpredictably good and not so good people around I found that they are the ones who control the happiness in our lives. Whenever we are happy or sad it is only because of them. We celebrate, go out, fight, watch movies, eat, cry, shop, work and hence build experiences with them. So does it mean we would be happy forever if we choose those people who make us feel wanted, makes us happy, care about us and about those small things which we like or hate and makes us love them back? It’s easier said than done. People are the most difficult to handle and we cannot predict their views and attitudes as they change with time and experience.

We all have people in our lives who love us but somewhere down the years their love starts fading. They no more take efforts to make us happy, give us small moments of joy to light up our lives. Can this happen that someone is so used to our existence in their lives that they don’t really care about anything else than we breathing next to them?  I don’t know may be some of you would agree and others  may not , but what keeps us alive  is that we still hope that one day that person would realize and start mending the relation and we would be on happier terms again. But the question is how long one should wait for such a thing to happen or may be how one should decide whether the person is worth the wait. Or else should we do a tit for tat like if you don’t care I stop caring too..!!

Ultimately it is very humane of us to seek happiness and peace with all the people who are crucial to us and whom we don’t want to lose. We all make mistakes and when we realize and want to correct ourselves all we need is a second chance. Life is about second chances. We should learn to forgive so that we all can grow as individuals, leave bad things behind and give ourselves the second chance to be happy and make everyone around us happy because without it life would not go on.

 I remember a great quote of Gandhi which would be very apt for me to conclude with “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

 Lets not make this world blind... !!

The Man in my life

Everyone wants to be loved but if it is not unconditional it is not love. This is about the man in my life. Yes I love this man .He gave me everything in life or in fact I would say he gave me life. I learnt what love is when he brought me into his life. He is a person who resembles humility, strength, peace, positivity and patience. He gives shape and meaning to my life. The way he treats everyone around him, inspires me to be humble. He is liked by all. Being with him is what counts as an amazingly great day for me. It is not easy for him to be ever optimistic and never complaining but it requires a lot of strength to be so. In spite of all the hardship he went through in life he never loses hope and he believes in making the world a better place to live. I have learnt a lot from him. He believed in whatever I do. He lives for his family. He is always there for me no matter what. His belief in me helps to keep my dreams alive. I love everything about him. The way he talks, the way he cares for me, the way he worries when I am sick, the way he makes me smile and the way he ensures my happiness every moment. I feel blessed to have him in my life. Every time I feel low, I talk to him and I feel great. He is just amazing.

 I wonder sometimes how one can be so selfless, always giving and forgiving. The way he lives his life makes me believe in goodness and gives me hope to find the good in bad. He makes me strong. He makes me humane. I can’t list the innumerable sacrifices he has done for me. Thanking him for everything would be something very minuscule as compared to his greatness.

He is the world to me and I cannot live a second without him. No matter how much I write about him it is never enough. No words can define him.

I hope everyone should have such a person in life who cares for you so much, make your life meaningful and give you unending happiness with his presence.

Dad I love you.

15th Oct....a perfect day

After a long and tiring day at office,me and my friend planned to visit a nearby Durga Puja Mandap.We both were hit by nostalgia and were really upset by the feeling of being away from home on such an important occasion of our life.
Durga Puja is celebrated widely all over India but predominantly in Assam,Bengal or Orissa.So being an Assamese staying at Mumbai it was difficult to gather that immense pleasure or excitement for the celebrations.But we managed to find a very famous Mandap at Vashi.
Although it was a huge area,there were scarcely much people around.The idol was 75 feet high,sparkling and radiating some kind of mystique energy such that we both were awestruck. We exchanged glaces and a wave of satisfaction quickly ran through our hearts.
It was a great sense of achievement for us.We were so highly devoted that we kept admiring the beauty of the idols for long with our hands folded and mouths sealed.

The added attraction was the numerous food stalls accompanying it, where delicious East Indian cuisines were available.We couldn't stop ourselves from having some tasty food.
It was just around 7pm and we had still ample of time to move around.We decided to go window shopping to a nearby mall.While on our way to the shopping mall we crossed the Assam Bhavan at Vashi.To our surprise we spotted another Puja Mandap there and we instantly got down from the auto.As we entered the Mandap, we noticed that the crowd was gathered near something.Out of curiosity we peeped in to discover our very own Bhupen Hazarika.
Many people might have heard this name for the first time but for Assamese people,he is a very prestigious personality.He is a very famous singer and people worship him for his contribution to the music industry.He was sitting on a wheel chair and was paying his regards to the crowd with his hands folded.Even though he looked aged,his eyes were sparkling and he seemed happy flashing a brisk smile at all.People were busy clicking photographs with their idol.It was great to see him after so long and that was like the icing on the cake.
We had a perfect evening and it was completely rejuvenating.
All thanks to Maa Durga for the serendipitous day.

Just by the way..................

One day one of my friends said something which I never realised earlier.He said he thinks that I am perfect in every way but it is rather a curse to me than a boon as I will rarely find anybody across the line standing with me.He said for this one reason I may suffer a lot emotionally.I laughed at first but later realized that he may be true.It was a unique aspect of seeing at a particular thing.It hurts when somebody hurts you time and again and say a lame sorry for each mistake they did.Well that's life, but is it really impossible to get good people around or may be we only remember the bad ones for the pain and acrimony they injected into our lives.
Forget and forgive is what I believe in and trust me it is really very difficult to believe.Forget the bad experiences and forgive people but everything has a limit.Tolerate everything to a point and after that just make it clear to yourself that even though the person seems to be apologizing he or she should learn a lesson and it is the best time to teach.

Time heals everything and yes it heals bad experiences,so we can just leave everything to the almighty and just do what our heart says.Well is it really that easy to follow your heart,actually not.We all must have experienced a moment when our heart wanted something but the situation turned out to be against our wish.We cant control everything with our heart,rather our heart,our emotions are all controlled by people around us.People who are near to our heart,people who love us,care about us and may be they are the same set of people who knowingly or unknowingly at some point of time hurt us and give us painful memories.So we should better focus on things which are under our control,things which we can achieve without being dependent to anything,be it people,place,emotions or time.

When you find yourself moving ahead in life and getting out of every bad thing that happened to you,then you will realize that you are growing matured with the years.Trapped in the past experiences will only give momentary feelings of happiness or sorrow.So get acquainted with changes ,it will make your life easier and nobody in this world has a predictable life so just stop worrying.Life brings changes for everyone in some way or the other and we should welcome it with great zeal.
Life.........I salute you.