Its OK to be Vulnerable!

I don't understand why some people think it is unacceptable to show your vulnerable side once in a while... what happens if you show? why do people fear others will consider you are weak? what's wrong in showing you can be weak too sometimes? its very natural...Honestly i can't understand. I was talking to someone very close to me and felt how that person was trying to suppress their feelings by saying.."yea it will be there and i will feel better in a few days time".. what was going through that person's mind? "No-no i should not say anything that will make him feel bad and he will start worrying and thinking" I mean how unselfish can people be? is it valid? is it worth it? makes me feel i am not the same... should I be? isn't it my responsibility to give what i get? or what they deserve at least? I am all confused! as ever... 

Tale of a mediocre middleclass boy!

This is a short story with no end so far of a mediocre-middleclass boy from a small town somewhere in Europe. I am sure there are many others who fall into this category. He was born into a middleclass family. He does not remember a lot of his childhood other than a few incidents here and there. His childhood was quite normal from a middleclass family point of view. He has now grown into a successful yet unhappy professional. His father is a very ambitious man probably life made him so. Working all his life for his family now looks forward to his kids achieving something great their lives or probably the boy thinks so now! At a very young age, he learned to respect his parents and probably decided never to hurt them. Thus began his journey of keeping his family happy. In this process, although he became the most loved child of his family, he was not loved by his own self. As he grew up, he started agreeing to career as well as personal decisions that was utilitarian in view. He felt this was the best way to go about it. After all his brother was a rebel and wanted to do things on his own and even did so on many occasions. So the being the younger for a change he decided he would go as per his parents wish. One of the other reasons that compelled him to agree to his parents wish was because he was quite indecisive and low on confidence to stand up for what he wanted to be in life. So he chose the path of least resistance - just agree and believe everything will be for the good. In the process of his career, he made great friends, had a comfortable college life and also ended up getting advanced degree finally ending up in a decent job. Now that life seems to have slowed down, he is beginning to reflect on his life - trying to make sense of what happened and whether it makes sense or not. For some part, he feels "Yes, what I did and what I am doing is for my family" - another part of him says "Oh, what have you done, In the process of making your parents happy, you have lost your own self, you never did anything for your own self"... Now that he has a decent job, decent salary, he wants to give back to his parents who have done so much in his life. For various reasons, he is now realizing that he might not be able to give them what he wants to and feels regretful for not being able to do so as well as regretful for his own self for not being a little more selfish all these years. He is seeing signs of his family not being in a position to accept what he has to offer. At this point in life, he is trying to make sense of where his life is heading to, why he has to work, earn. It is difficult for him to motivate himself for selfish reasons. Hopefully, he will find a meaning - well even if not - time doesn't wait for anyone and will keep chugging along - and so will his life !!

Bored

Bored !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hmmmmmmm! So writing after a loooooooooooong time........ Have one more exam to go tomorrow. I will be done with first semester of MBA. Did enjoy it but it has been tough..... tough to cope with work and studies as always. So here I am sitting with about 5 chapters more to go for my Economics exam. Dont feel like studying :-(.... dont feel like doing anything, looks like I am ready for a break....... the one I am looking forward to :-). 11 more days and I will be flying to my hometown (Bengaluru... yeaah).... looking forward to meet parents :-), Friends :-), Mom's home cooked food :-), and much more........ Will be there for almost a month. Hope to regroup my energy during that time, have fun and get back to another semester of slogging!. This is LIFE ! at least as of now. The temperature outside is -10 degrees which makes it harder to sit and study, I have been sleeping a lot :-(, this weather is definitely not for me when compared to heaven (Bengaluru), hope to get there for good sooooooooooooooon. Routine life is as boring as loneliness, Change is the only good thing and as is told is the only Constant thing. Listening to songs from "Aandhi" makes it a little better, no one on messenger to chat with :-(, no emails, the heat in my apartment draining me out of water makes me sick !!!! ok enough of my saga .......... gotto get back to understanding how economy works!!!!!

Will write the next one in BENGALURU :-)........
Adios,
Sandy

Another Hot and Humid Night

Another hot and humid night!

ooooph! . Another hot and humid night. Its about 11;35 Pm on Tuesday night. Its not really hot but yes it is. Thanks to my staff member, we now have an A/C in the bed room. Can go and sleep in a cool environment. It was really hot last couple of weeks and the heat seems to have come back. I had been to my unc;s place over the weekend. It was a good trip except for the delay in reaching his place. I and all others on the way to Washington were detoured because of some problem close to Silver Spring. Had to go through the interior roads. I got to see Laurel (name of the place) because of this, it was new, it was nice, I passed through the entire town( I assume it is one!). Used a little bit of common sense to take the US 1 south route since I drive from US 1 North. I called my uncle to know I was in the rt direction and would meet the junction where I could connect back to the highway to reach his place. The only thing I did wrong was going into Downtown of Silver Spring which was not needed. But I enjoyed that too, even at 11:45 at night there were a lot of ppl, the city was full of lights. So it was a nice 15 minute drive into the city. So finally reached unc;s place at midnight, had a light and nice home cooked meal, went to bed after a long 4 hour drive. The next day went to one of aunts relatives house for lunch. Lunch was really yummy ! More than that, I liked their house. Lot of greenery around, we had lunch in their back yard on a deck ( shape of a mantapa). Hard to describe but harder to forget!

So after lunch, got to play carrom board! does anybody even remember this ???? It was such a nice break, I simply enjoyed it. Though it took me about 5-6 boards to get back to a lil form, i enjoyed every bit of it, It was fun.

So came back home, took rest and then it was dinner time again...... so we went out to Madras cafe a restaurant nearby. Hmmm after the waiter informing me they did not have mini idly's ( has anyone had those?), i settled for Mysore sada dosa. After a substantial wait, I got to eat my dosa. Even before I took the first bite, the dosa was cold.... and was stuck to the plate . I turn around to see so many ppl around me eating. I was wondering these ppl should have extra money to waste on such a restaurant(including us :( ). Anyways, went back home, got onto my laptop, was able to connect to interenet with a low speed. Was able to browse through my emails, reply to important ones and then went to bed.

This was like a total DROP from where I was before going there. Imagine working for more than 10 hrs per day and even on saturday and sunday and all of a sudden you cannot do anything ! That was a bit of major pull down and was really hard to take. But I used this time to think a little differently on all the issues i was facing, this gave me some new ideas.

So I was at a Birthday party for twins (2 year old) and satyanarayana pooja. It was nice. The best part of it was when I got to let baby boy(1 of the twins) sleep on my lap. Believe me, to watch him sleep was heaven . Nothing to beat that. Man, kids are heavy when they sleep. My legs were going numb. But when i saw the baby's face, I forgot everything. The pooja was over, everyone did namaskaara and took prasad while I was still sitting. I didn;t want the baby to wake up. After sometime, I had to give him to another person for me to take prasad. He woke up once he shifted, but luckily he had already had a nice sleep and was not cranky at at all . So I had a dinner and got to play with both the twins for some more time with balloons before they cut the cake.

Had a cup of coffee and left for home. The only incident which left a bad taste to me was that two of the guests cars were towed for being parked in the VISITOR lot. It was a catch that nobody except the house owner who was busy with the pooja. So 2 of them had to pay $90. I didnt think this was a big amount to brood over for ppl pretty well off. Anyways all I felt was it was meant to happen and it happened and should have just closed there, instead it became the topic of the afternoon. Everyones talking about this, how one should sue, whom?, where? how oh my god ! Did anyone even think about what would have been the case if this was India? The cop would have taken a 100 bucks and then got done with it. Nobody would even care. What happened now? because you are in America, you need to be like this thinking of sueing and things like that. Believe me the entire time through lunch and till everyone left there was just one topic the one about car being towed. And this was not enough we even were having the same discussion at dinner table at night.

My god, I just stayed away from the whole conv and controlled myself. If anyone of them comes to know the way I am spending money, they will be shocked . Anyways... so stayed there on Sunday nite, drove down Monday Morning to philly in 2;30 mins dead. It was an easy drive.

Came back to my world ! sort of relief .

Thats all for now !

Adios

Sandy

08/02/2005

Its a beautiful day

Beautiful Day!

Its a great day to just work outside. The temperature currently is sunny and 65 deg F. wow that feels like heaven. I was talking to my friend today and I said I wish everyday would be like this, he said well "I like snow sometimes too". So its all about " The grass is always green on the other side" isn't it???.... I guess so. If we have one thing, we want another and then another and then another........... so where does it all end??? I read a wonderful story today. I will paste it here...........

"A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university lecturer.

Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the lecturer went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, some plain-looking and some expensive and exquisite, telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the lecturer said: "If you noticed, all the nice-looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the better cups and are eyeing each other's cups."

"Now, if Life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doe sn't change." "Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it."

So folks, don't let the cups drive you...enjoy the coffee instead "

I hope you got the message !

Take care,

Sandy

6:38 pm on April 11th, 2006

My 25th Birthday

My 25th Birthday !

yup!!! its official !! I have entered the 26th year as of today !! boy feels so old to be studying ;).... but I am glad I am happy with what I am doing !!!

My 25th birthday was a silent, nice birthday!! came back from work on 14th, got ready to go running ( ya... have been pretty regular with that these days... for once ;) ...) but ended up helping a neighbor fix her new AC..... and also got to meet her fat black cat :-)...... it was a cute one.... had a good tiring experience... and then came back home, it was already 9 so no mood for cooking... wanted to eat Pizza and so ordered gooooooooood yummy pizza from overbrook (one of the best pizzas I have had around here).... had a nice drink that my roomie made ;-). I called my parents, got their blessings, called my granny, got her blessings and then cousins, and then called my uncle in mumbai and then uncle in maryland... got all their blessings... It is a different feeling when u call up, tell them its your birthday and want their blessings, to me blessings were more important than they remembering it ! waited till 12.. my roommates and a friend were here, cut a nice yummy chocolate cake (with 3 different types of chocolate i guess)... had some of it... and then slept..... got up on 15th around 7:30, went running in a pretty cloudy weather (better than a hot day).... came back to a ton of wishes on orkut and a few missed calls... had to catch up to every message and missed calls... some of them to my friends in India .. it had been some time since I spoke to them..... then was dead hungry... went to produce (vegetable and fruit market).... brought good vegetables, fruits, cooked yummy spinach, onion sambar, rice. Had a nice filling lunch.......... Then we went out for a movie...(golmaal - new) it was hilarious... laughed, laughed and laughed.... came back home in the evening,.... made bhel puri (courtesy: haldiram) ... took a long walk with my friend.. came back home, had a light dinner... checked my emails, did some reading for class... and now going to call my parents :-).................

So that was my 25th Birthday !!!!
Take care,
Adios
Sandy