A new journey on the road untravelled...a journey for the good !!!

"You can't stop the future,

You can't rewind the past

The only way to learn the secret

......is to press play."

- Jay Asher

It´s been a long time I have penned my thoughts. It has been a busy couple of months anyways. But its never too late - as long as it happens. I travelled a bit in between...went to Bergen for a weekend trip (will post the pictures very soon in a separate post) and then was in India in July. This year has been a eventful one till date - and will just get better, as the plan goes :) Professionally, I have been much more stable and personally things seem to be getting in place...as if I have now found the missing pieces of the puzzle (at least as of now). My life is soon to take a turn, a turn to a road all new for me, a journey to the road untravelled - though the best part about it will be that this journey is not just mine...I will not be alone in this journey. I am looking forward to this new chapter of my life, to this new turn - or a new beginning - 'My Life - Part II' ???

More updates will follow...as for now, I am just enjoying the feeling on floating with the waves - living in this present - which literally is turning out to be a present - one for a lifetime :)

Till then...Good vibes to all out there.......

The Paradox of Our Age

"We have bigger houses but smaller families;

More conveniences, but less time;

We have more degrees, but less sense;

More knowledge, but less judgement;

More experts, but more problems;

More medicines, but less healthiness;

We've been all the way to moon and back,

but have trouble crossing the street to meet

the new neighbour;

We build more computers to hold more

information, to produce more copies than

ever, but have less communication.

We have become long on quantity,

but short on quality.

These are times of fast food

but slow digestion;

Tall man but short character;

Steep profits but shallow relationships.

Its a time when there is much in the

window, but nothing in the room."

- Dalai Lama.

I read this today morning and thought about every word of this. How true it is...! It is for all of us to read, re-read, and think, ponder and introspect...!!! Have we lost something in the material world...? Have we lost the sense of sensibility...??? Has our apathy taken over our empathy...??? Are we still humans, or are we transforming ourselves into walking robots...??? Is that what we call modernization or are we going primate...???

I don´t have the answers to these questions...do you ???

7 Lovely logics...

Somethings, if we can remember them, can make our life much more relaxed and filled with happiness...! The problem is just about remembering these basic things, which though we all know, but still fail to remember/comprehend when we need them the most...! Anyways, here they come (I hope I will remember these in 2012 to make sure it does not turn out the way 2011 did...!!!)

Keep having a great year ahead...
Be blessed and make one person happy each day...

Oslo - Trondheim - Oslo...Life takes another circle...

Yesterday I watched the movie: My Big Fat Greek Wedding (yeah once again, just about reaching a zillion views by now...) But even now, this one sentence in the movie struck me more than ever before:

"Don't let your past dictate who you are, but let it be part of who you will be..."

Well, our very famous Sherlock Holmes would have said: "That's elementary, my Dear Watson." but then it's normally those elementary things we end up neglecting/messing with. So Mr. Holmes, you should not be mocking Dear Watson... :)

Over the past some time, I have been trying to be someone....someone who I am (probably) not. In the hindsight, I feel that I have done things that I should not have done...! But then, a lot of what I did were based on my past...hence the opening line that somehow struck me.

My year started with a lot of turmoil...things happened in a jiffy. It seemed that everything that could go wrong (or even the ones which I would have never expected to go wrong), went wrong, all at the same time. Nothing seemed to be working then. All that I could think of was: "Why is all this happening to me?" OR "What have I done to deserve this?". It was just about the approach which seemed to be all negative then. It was as if I was standing in front of a mountain and I was just about cursing myself "How the heck did I reach here?" OR "What wrong path I took that I ended up here?" rather than trying to find ways to cross the mountain (somehow)...! I was living in a sea of problems rather than finding/building a boat to get through...!

In the later part of the year, I was at the cross roads...! I had to make some very important decisions....! It had reached a point of frustration (to some extent). Sounds funny now, but I was at a point where I was searching on the internet anything that could possibly motivate me...any inspirational quotes, any special stories...and it was then when I came across this:

"Fears over tomorrow and regrets over yesterday are twin thieves that rob us of the moment"

This was probably my Eureka moment...this was exactly what I was doing...I was worried what would happen when I would be in India (my most probable future at that time) - worried about people, especially so-called 'close relatives', worried about the time that I will have to spend to fetch a good job. To add on to it, I was regretting about what I had been through just a couple of months back (my near past...).

Somehow, this one sentence changed my line of thinking...made me more focused about what I had right at this moment rather than thinking too much about my past and my future. Of course, this is not something I was able to achieve (or rather am still striving to achieve) in a moment of truth, or a day, or a month...but certainly it gave me a much clearer thought process. I was stuck in the deadly loop of past and present (both of which are not in my control) and hence was neglecting my present. It is not as if it changed the situation I was going through then, it just changed my perception towards it.

After a hard year, I can certainly say that my last month has been somewhat more stable...probably GOD planned to end my year on a good note OR probably he just wanted me to realize that we need to work hard to achieve if we want something from our life. Perhaps, it was HIS way of reminding me...just waking me up of the dream run I have been through the year before (2010). I am sure this is not the last time I am going though a rough phase in my life, certainly not (and I hope not)...as true character of a person is tested, not in good times, but in difficult ones.

Seems like it was just now that I came to Trondheim...a place where I knew no one from before...just carried with me a hope and a will (and my couple of bags :) ). Now after two eventful years in Trondheim, after meeting loads of people, and making some friends (a few of whom will stay with me for a long time to come), I am again back to the place from where I started my Norwegian voyage...back to those whose first years in Norway coincided with mine. So my life has taken another circle...back to where it all started...hopefully for the good...but just remember to live in the present...!!!

An optimist...

Facebook...or...Fakebook...or...a land of Virtual Reality...???

On the name of 'development', the list of necessary evils goes on increasing...! A major inclusion in this list has been Facebook.

As per Wiki, Facebook is: 

        "a social networking service and Web site launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. As of July 2011, Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile."

True, that it has been a revolution in itself. Emerging from possibly one of the most important/basic concepts of human existence - the concept of society and that humans are social beings, it provides one of the strongest and widest base to connect to those whom you know/don't know, friends/enemies (well you can..or at least stalk them), inland/out-land, home/away, acquaintances/complete strangers. It makes distances disappear. You can get in touch with those whom you have not met for a decade. Find friends, check updates, arrange events, 'poke' people (though I am yet to decipher the real use of it...!), create fan pages (useless for me...!), create posts, comment on posts, like posts and what not! True, Facebook has been a meteoric success!

So, when it comes to Facebook 'To be or not to be' is indeed not the question anymore...it's just about how long when you are in finally in there..............

But then what's the catch here? Is it all so goody? Personally, I don't think so...perhaps I am still to find an ideal world...or maybe I am just overly pessimistic. Have we lost something during the process of being represented only by our Facebook profile? Have we lost the emotional aspects of a human interaction to a 'poke' or a 'pinch' - I don't care!

When I started my engineering studies in 2001 (yeah has been 10years now...phew !), we used to remember the birthdays of our friends (remember no Facebook then to give an alarm that its my friends birthday today!)...used to make greetings cards for them, either by hand or just fetch one from Archies Gallery or Hallmark...! Every card I used to receive made me feel good, made me feel that I know one more person who took enough trouble to remember this date and made some effort to make this day more special to me...in his/her own way. Then the closest of those friends probably arranged a birthday cake for me...and I had to pretend to be surprised... :) but it was fun and joy - all in one ! Last month, I celebrated by 28th birthday. I got loads and loads of wishes (way way way more than I used to get 10 years ago), though, yeah you guessed it right, on Facebook...coupled with a few phone calls from family and close relatives. A few of my 'Facebook friends', in order to make their wish 'stand-out' threw a 'Virtual Cake' on me...! Infact, the height of everything was the conditional wish from my girlfriend who actually wished me birthday only after I surrendered to her condition to upload a picture of ours on Facebook, a picture which was already on my profile, but then she wanted me to upload the same picture once again and so it had to be so...!!!

Among all of the wishes that I received, one of them stands out to me...the one I received from a college friend of mine. She actually sent me an e-card...! Sounds old fashioned...but that possibly was one of the best wishes I received this year! It made me feel that there is still some hope left, some people still care, some people still think that there exists a life outside that woven by Facebook...some people still remember your birthday not just because there was a birthday alarm on Facebook...but because they genuinely remember!

From 2001 till 2011, there have been lots of changes...our lives have become faster, we are running against time...always playing a catch-up game...we don't have time to stop and say 'Hi! How are you today? How is the weather in your city? How is your family? Have a very nice day ahead and send my regards to your family'. We don't find time to stop by our neighbour's house to have a cup of tea and discuss about 'other stuff'. We are now more like machines, working hard to make our ends meet or just working hard as we have nothing better to do...but...that one e-card made me realize how much difference personal touch can make...and sometimes, doing a lot does not count, but just making someone smile does...!

Well, I started from Facebook, but wavered somewhere in between onto our lives and how those small things can make your life appear more than worth just 'ahh...Friday is still way far off'...! So just do something, not necessarily of magnanimous proportions, but something that makes someone smile: crack a joke, give a rose to a friend, give a dime to a needy, help someone cross the road, listen to your friend...or just send a card to someone you care about.........................

It all comes back...in this life...!!!

"The worst lies are the lies we tell ourselves. We live in denial of what we do, even what we think. We do this because we're afraid. We fear we will not find love, and when we find it we fear we will lose it. We fear that if we do not have love we will be unhappy" - Richard Bach


I have just been through the worst time of my life. I found love and lost it...! All I said to the girl who loved me all the time, was a bunch of lies...all the way long. But in the process, I became so engrossed in all this, that I forgot that it all comes back...in this very life...!!! So it was just a matter of time when this house of cards was to fall...and so it happened today...!!! I am sad...yes...but happy, at the same time because I feel that what should have happened much earlier, finally happened...!


I know that in all those lies, there was ONE truth which was and will always be a TRUTH...! I really loved her (and still do) and always wanted (and still do) to be with her...!!! But then, when she asked me, "Is this what you do to people whom you love?" then I had no answer...I was as dumb as a rock...! I am guilty of committing this sin, not once, not twice, not thrice, but again and again and again...and I am already being punished as the girl, who unselfishly loved me, wanted to be with me, was ready to change herself just for me...and wanted just one thing from me - she wanted to be happy with me and I could not give her even that much...all I gave her was pain and sadness. I have learnt my lesson...unluckily too late though...!


Through this post, I just want to tell everyone just one thing - If you love someone, then take care of them and they can make your life heaven with love and happiness...! And never lie to someone you love, as love and lie don't really live together...! I learned it the hard way...I hope you all can learn it just in time and make your special ones believe that they hold a special place in your heart...!

Oslo - Lko - Oslo -- Life takes a full circle

Life has been nothing but a great journey for the past 16months...but today I won't pen down my experiences of my transition from an MBA student to a MBA graduate to a professional, but more about the my journey to India and how excited I am to be back to my India after such a long time...next month is going to be amazing for sure...

3rd September 2008, I put my first steps in Norway, for studies (of course...what else :) ) and then I learned, if not a lot, but at least something and I can definitely say that my stay here has been very instrumental in developing my thought process and approach, in general. What I am more excited about now is to analyse how my new learning can change my perception of those age-old things which we generally take for granted. Going back to India...will surely be a change...as both these cultures are two poles apart (well...not literally!!!)...say traffic...from a 20 cars/minute to 200cars/min...minimal to maximal honking...right-hand traffic to left-hand traffic...rare appearance of people unless there are any signs of sunshine to lots of people on road irrespective of the weather...organized to self-organized traffic...(and this is just the TRAFFIC...huh...) the list just goes on...

I am surely waiting to meet my family members...who themselves have been eagerly waiting for me for a long time now (It surely was a long wait) ...! Then there is my niece who would have grown up a year from the last time I saw her...ahhhh...how I miss her cute innocence...some more days and you will be able to see her...great isn't it...???

My stay here in Norway has been all experiences...small and big, good and not-so-good...! I have met people of all kinds, my first long experience being 'home, away from home' ! But then life takes you places and that's how grow your perception, thought process, looking beyond the horizon...! I know I still have a lot to learn, but one thing that I am sure about it...

"...But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep."