The Bhang effect. It's strange. But different.!

I and a friend studied about Bhaang which is prepared from the leaves of the cannabis plant. Wikipedia did helped us know every stuff about it.I was sure I would try it some day. May be it would be great. Well, I am intoxicated now in effects. Bhang is considered holy and is taken in North India in festivals like Holi, where they are used to party!

Today was the day I again tried it. This evening I was studying and went out with my friend to try it.

So we finally tried it in the market. We went to a bhangwala and said - "Bhaiya, do do rupaye ka bhang dijiye with a bit of rabdi." He served cool, finely ground leaves and we got a smooth drinking experience. I got no effects within an hour. The real fun started just after one and a half hours. I noticed many effects, which were real Euphoria.

It was so euphoric, that I wanted to record it then. I became desperate to write them down as soon as possible, or I could forget. It was like out of the world euphoria. That was always new to you, and you will think, this moment seems the last, you are being taken to a newer world and you are bidding good bye to a planet that's powered by Newton's rules. You have a couple of short term memory loss moments. You will forget how you got to this place. I mean, you will forget what you were the  last moment, before arrivng at a place. At few times, I noticed I was in balcony and in the next moment I would be participanting in the family talks.

I noticedd myself talking to my sister and parents, which I generally avoid. I was cracking jokes and passionately talking everyone at home. Most of the time I have found myself not able to socialize with them properly. But that day I talked to my hearts content.I generally didnt like Maggi's Noodles from childhood, and had been avoiding it, though my sis used to have regularly. Bhang makes you so hungry that you become quite unsenstitive to taste. You will find a lot of things that tasted awful, taste good. I quickly gobbled up the whole noodles served to me and asked for more, to everyone's astonishment.

I even called the lovely girl, whom I have a crush on, and am like become-dumb-when-you-see-her. But today I talked to my hearts content, of many of the unexpressed riddles hidden my heart, housing my love for her. It was once in a blue moon that I would have interacted in the same way I do in the dreamworld. Well I am a bit half-nerdy half-geeky person. As expected I can't make any conversation interesting. I fail to arrive at topics that will extend the converation. I often arrive at topics that will shut it down. So, talking to her in such a note surprised me. This was the first time she laughed from her heart and it was an applause for the struggling artist like me who is trying hard to entertain his lady love. She was finally entertained after a series of many failure conversations; one was just the day before. Her voice seemed equally lovely or I'd say that day I didnt wish to stop talking to her, in contrast to other days when I was really nervous and wanted to stop talking.It was a great experience indeed of one of the untried things.

It makes you so crazy and confident that I wrote all these while I was still intoxicated. The feeling of Euphoria is great. And people do get addicted to it. In case of Bhang, its cool for a day you want to relax. But don't try it during exams, cause it will not let you study. 
Try it!

Test

This funny incident happened to one of my friends from another DC.

I bumped into him at Kolkata's South City mall. We boarded a metro train to Esplanade and he described all about this girl on the way.

***
I was at a food court early morning for tea. She was there at a corner table having her cappuccino.
I had been seeing her almost everyday at the same table, at the same time with the same drink. The only reason I used to watch her was that she looked like one of my ex-girlfriends whom I had dearly loved.

It's true that it is 2013 and not 1993. Love doesn't happen the way it used to in those days. Today, we do not need to stalk the girl we like and ultimately get a chance to talk to her. Today we just do not fall for someone we do not know. We start conversations directly on WhatsApp. We share pics. We fix dates. We meet. We chat more. Go on some more dates. And then a few months down the line we have a new girlfriend. Bingo!

Having a crush, wanting to talk to her and yet not getting a chance, trying hard and using common friends to find out her number, getting the number but not having the guts to call: these things have become history.

I don't know how but after a long time and half a dozen not-working relationships, I had fallen for this girl the 90's way.

I didn't know anything about her except that she was also working in the same company (which was quite an obvious thing).

I realised that it isn't a movie and nothing good will happen to me if I just be a silent spectator.

I started thinking about how I could talk to her. I had to figure out a way soon, or just watch her until a job switch or marriage or transfer would take her far away from me.

I glanced at her once. She was beautiful, was quite fair and had an innocent look on her face.

What happened at the school cafeteria

It was a sunny day.

I hurried to the new cafeteria that had started operating in my school.
There was a long queue of students at the counter for ordering food.

I joined at the end of the queue and started thinking. No, I wasn't thinking what I wanted to eat (like all the other students there). I was thinking something like this:

What should I order? Let's pick something that I can say easily without stammering. The guy standing behind me says 'poori sabji' tastes great. But it would be really hard for me to speak that. I better point at the pastry kept on the counter and say that I want this.

I didn't like pastries. And it they were too expensive for me because I was a school kid. But I decided to have it for lunch,  because I didn't want to stammer and make a fool out of myself.

When my turn came, I pointed at the strawberry flavored pastry kept in counter and said I want this. I paid the money and he gave me the pastry. I has a sigh of relief. Mission  accomplished! I didn't stammer!

But the cashier started speaking, "we are having a lucky draw this week. So we need your name. Please tell us your name."

The feeling of victory for being able to successfully order food changed to panic, I felt something uneasy in my stomach. I tried to speak out my name.
B - B - B.. I got a severe block. I gave up.

The cashier said,  "What? You forgot your name?" Everyone including the cashier started laughing. I had made a fool out of myself.

I took the pastry and ran to the playground and sat in a corner. I felt worthless that day. First I cursed the damn lucky draw. Then I thought why poori sabji wasn't kept on the counter like the pastries,  so that I could point at it and buy it.

I don't know when a drop of tear fell on the pastry. I felt worthless and threw the food. I didn't have lunch that day.

Ordering food, speak on the phone, responding to roll calls, telling a story or a joke were nightmares for me.

That lunch break was one of the worst lunch breaks of my life. I had a mixture of emotions inside me:
I was embarrassed (I made a fool of myself in front of others)
I felt sad (I had to live with this problem till the end of my life)
I felt angry (How dare they laugh at me like that!)
I felt frustrated (I punched everywhere asking God WHY ME? WHY?)
I felt revengeful (One day I'll prove it to you who I am and I'll laugh at you!)
I felt hopeless (No matter what I do, I'll always be like this)

The next day I didn't go to that cafeteria. I asked mom to pack fruits for lunch. When she asked why, I lied to her saying "I don't like the food at the cafeteria. It's unhealthy". I had lunch in the classroom with a nerdy boy who used to study even in lunch breaks and games periods.

This went on for a week.

On the seventh day I got a bit of enlightenment by having lunch with the nerdy boy. He had habituated to rote learning. He used to memorise mathematics problems also. His only intention was to score the highest marks in the class. He never gave up.

Watching him I realised I had two options:
1) I will never have lunch in the cafeteria again.
2) I will not give up and work hard like the nerdy boy and I will order poori sabji like all the others.

The problem was not with the cashier,  or the students or my name. The problem was with ME!

That day back at home I started to learn to speak poori sabji. I spoke it in front of the mirror for a 100 times. I enacted the scene and imagined I was standing in the queue and decided that I will order what I like to eat and not what is easy to speak.
I practiced for a few days. And the next day I went back to the cafeteria.

I was least bothered about whether people will laugh again. But I didn't want to move back. I wanted to give it another try. All the time I stood in the queue I didn't think a lot many things about my speech. I just told myself that i was going to have poori sabji today,  and I relaxed by watching kids play football in the nearby playground.

"A plate of poori sabji please",  I spoke out when my turn came. And I had spoken it clear enough for the cashier to understand and he had started printing the coupon. No one congratulated me that day,  because the war I was fighting was against my own self.

I realised something that day. The biggest hurdles in our lives lie inside us, in our minds. And that is the reason why,  when all of us have the same set of limbs and legs and eyes,  only those who know how to overcome those hurdles win.

The newest start-up destination : Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar is one of India's less known capital cities. But the city has its own advantages, this planned city has one of the lowest traffic congestion rates, better electric power and water management (which means lesser number of power cuts and water shortage in contrast to the bigger and older metros).

Spread in a diameter of just 25 kms and good roads, any part of the city can be traversed in just 30 to 45 mins. Well connected via rail and air to all major cities of India, bhubaneswar has become a top destination for software startup companies. 

Most of the startups which were born here have prospered. Mindfire solutions is an good example. 

"You will find over a 100 startups in Bhubaneswar today. Most of them provide IT services to smaller companies in the Americas, Europe and Australia. Some of them have bagged projects of public sector banks in India also. I started my company in the year 2007 and we experienced around 150 percent growth every year",  says Ranjhan Jha who started his company called Shivam Technologies when he was still in college. 

Coming to work culture at these companies, don't expect cafés and spas in the campuses. These startups often rent a small place and setup their office,  with the basic requirements to operate an IT firm. 

Sibatri Roy who joined a startup just after her graduation says,  "It's a small company so it involves more interaction in between employees."

"Everyone including the CEO and sales team is easily approachable",  says Sandeep who works for Mindfire. 

As is true for all IT services firms, sometimes employees need to give a lot of extra efforts in crunch situations and when they are handling a project single handedly. 

Miss Roy further adds that though her work was challenging she was not completely happy because her paycheck was not as heavy for the amount of effort she put in the company. "I used to work for long hours to fix issues and complete on time deliveries but I wasn't paid that we'll because I was a fresher,  she says. She switched to another fast growing MNC based in Delhi recently and is looking forward to some growth in her career. 

Bhubaneswar, often referred to as the "Temple city" has now become a hub for several Web startups,  because of its advantages that bigger cities like Bangalore and NCR don't have. 

Yehi toh zindagi hai

Aj kaun mujhe ehsaas dilayega,
Ki ishq mein kitni mithas hoti hai,
Kiski ankhon mein kho jaun aj mein,
Sab kuchh bhula kar,
Bas tujhko mehsus Kar..

Yehi toh zindagi hai..

Jo dil mein kaid hai teri yaadein,
Ki tu jaise aaj bhi bas meri hai,
Kaise bataun apne aap ko,
Ki kho chuka hoon main aaj tujhko,

Yehi toh jaana zindagi hai...

Meri intezaar bhari nazron se,
Us mod ko dekhna,
Tu jahan chhup ke milne aati thi,
Aaj fir se khada tha usi jagah pe,
Par tu nahin, tera saaya nahin, teri awaaz bhi nahin thi..

Sayad mere liye itafaq tha,
Aur tere liye bas mohhabat,
Nahin samajh paye tujhko,
Galti kar gaye tujhe thukrake,
Teri yaadon main aaj hai meri zannat..

Tujhe fir se paane ki tamanna hai,
Tu na mile toh,
Teri khushi mein khush hone ki arzoo hai,

Yehi toh jana ab meri zindagi hai..
Yehi toh jaana ab meri zindagi hai..

Can we answer any of these questions?

The day I saw the T-Shirt with the message - “I'd love India, if I didn't have to live in it”, I actually started believing that there really are few people who aren't proud to be born in India. There are people who aren't happy about being Indian, but they keep there voices low, from the fear of being hated by the numerous others who are proud to be Indians. 

It's known that India has had a bad time in the last few hundred years. The European exploitation left it crippled, and it requires a hell lot of work to make it stand up and walk again. I would like to raise the first question - “How much work are we doing? Can we hope that India will stand up and walk again, with the amount of effort being given?" 

We forecast ourselves to be the next superpower in a few decades, but does everyone know that a developed country requires the whole of its population to be developed and not just the creamy layer? I wont argue that nothing great has ever happened in India. There are and were great people, who showed us an example of what is possible with a bit of extra effort. There were Dhirubhai Ambanis, who proved that a common man can become a billionaire. There are Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalams who dared to build missiles for the nation. But the numbers are very less, seems to be pretty less when we boast of being the largest human resource provider in the world. I wont want to emphasize on all the problems that's holding the country back, I would want to share the root causes – The Faulty Education System and Corruption, and how both of them are cyclic. 

Education is undoubtedly the most indispensable requirement for prosperity. A developed country needs 'well-educated' citizens. But, corruption makes education dirty. Its obvious that corruption makes everything dirty, but when it enters the field of education, we are going to pay a heavy price, because it directly affects economic growth and well-being of a billion Indians. 

Its a very common debated sentence, that a youngster in India isn't free to choose a career according to what he wants. Most of them are forced to choose either engineering or medical science. Even in some cases where the student is not forced, he still doesn't have the guts to choose a third option, because being an engineer or doctor is the best way to survive! Yes, an engineering degree is the easiest way to get a good job, and being a doctor is a good way to earn. 

Someone who'd want to start a small business after college would not be considered respectful, because people think it was because he didn't get a job. In most cases, being an entrepreneur is a matter of compromise and a not a choice. 

There are little more than 100 engineering colleges in the state of Odisha, but the question is - “How many colleges have the infrastructure and facilities to provide quality education?” Most of the private colleges that produce thousands of graduates every year, do not even have the resources necessary for a quality high school education. 

I wont just list the problems, I would list the solutions too. 

First and foremost, the government must stop helping people to run businesses in the name of educational institutions. These days, when a group of entrepreneurs decide to setup a private college, all they think of is making money out of it. “People are crazy to get a engineering degree, so we can 'sell' it to them. And we would never incur a loss in the business because all of the seats would definitely be booked every year. Who cares about education? Its the best way to make money.” This is what they'd think. This is where the government must act. Affiliations must be issued only to those colleges, who have a satisfactory education model consisting of facilities, educational culture, good faculty and facilities that motivate students to be innovative and think out of the box. 

    Just a few acres of land, a building with few classrooms and a registered name don't make a college! Rules do exist everywhere, but corruption makes it dirty, to the extent that anyone can get setup a college with a mediocre capital, with additional under-the-table deals! In the long run, such ventures only depreciate the standard of engineers, rather than contributing to economic development. 

Lets go deep into the scene of a private college. The management doesn't really care about hiring good faculty, and is the obvious reason why those teachers are one of the least paid employees. The essence of a educational institution is a group of qualified and great teachers, all other stuff comes second. But, private colleges give the least priority to hiring good teachers. Second, talking about innovation, a student who wants to work on a innovative project in the final semester, never gets support and resources from the college, rather gets demoralized when his work is never recognized or given any extra credits for the efforts he put forth. These stuff have no value, its just a spend-money-get-a-degree environment. 

    “How many computer engineering students can install an Operating System in a computer? How many electronics engineering students can open up all parts of a radio and again fix them back? How many civil engineering students can say why a suspension bridge is a better solution across a river?” The question is - “How many?” This question is enough to illustrate the falling standards of engineering graduates. 

When young, people say they are proud of being Indians, and seem to be really patriotic. But as adults many of them involve in practices that hamper economic growth. The recent scams revealed the height of corruption. People accumulate black money in swish banks, in return for humiliating and raping the country's image at the international level. When some politician smuggles money out of development projects for the country, isn't the situation like stealing from the country's rights? Aren't they stealing from the primary school kids in a small village who are waiting for their lunch? Aren't they stealing from fellow citizens and insulting their motherland? I would rather say, the pride of I-Love-India is just a show off, the only thing they care about in a crippled economy is making money! 

The biggest unanswered question is - “Who will bell the cat?” 

Or shall we try to get out of this country and settle abroad?

Would you like to answer any of the questions?

A million things I'd like to say, but I can't.

It was raining and pretty cold outside and I called someone for the obvious reason of chatting for a while, but had to hang up soon. It was because it was hard to talk, it was something that wouldn't let me speak what I wished to express, and that had made me talk more to myself than to the other people around me.

I wondered the last time, I had my voice, a perfect and fluent speech, the voice that could speak its heart, the voice that I wish I had now. I was helpless about it, because the voice had left me ten years back, in a world where I needed it badly, to survive, to be happy, to be social and to find love.

I remembered that day back in 6th grade, when a teacher said to me - "You know a lot of things but the problem with you is you are quite mischievous". These were the kind of comments that I used to get from teachers very often, after I would be caught disturbing the class, but still would be able to give satisfactory answers to the questions that followed. I never stuttered, or did I know what stuttering was.

Its obvious that we can not remember all incidents of our life, so don't remember how I contracted stuttering. The next incident I remember was in 7th grade, when I and a group of friends were being punished for playing a prank with a girl of 6th grade, whom I met in a painting class. As we were kneeling down outside the class, and our class teacher was about to arrive, and all of us were pretty nervous of facing his questions, I remember requesting the guy beside me to help me with my speech when the teacher would ask me for an explanation. By that time, one year past the former incident, I had become a severe stutterer.

I have tried hard to recall the exact time and reason of how I got the problem of not being able to speak fluently, but I don't remember any incident that happened in the one year gap between the two I described above.

Stuttering made my life hell, mostly because mine was a case of severe stuttering. Most people who would want to advice me about it would say, "keep a stone under your tongue at night when you sleep", others would ask me to read the newspaper aloud every morning. But, the stone stuff is for people who have incorrect pronunciation, a speech disorder that's called "lisping". My case was not that at all. Those days we had very limited knowledge about speech disorders and I kept hoping this would be cured someday. I had heard many stories of some distant relative who used to stutter in childhood and grew up to be a fluent speaker. I was hopeful that the bad speech problem would go away as easily as it appeared all of a sudden.

The worse days had started and the mischievous part of me had died now. I was once the "disturbing element of the class" and now I was one guy who would sit silently even in lunch breaks. It all started after fellow-classmates humiliated and teased when my speech blocked. Later, I wasn't able to even answer my roll call.

I would practice everyday while walking to school. I would think "today I will do it. Today I wont stop", but I would always get blocked at the instant I stood up to say "Yes sir!" As, I grew up stuttering became a trauma, something that made me hate myself. I could figure out by then, the more I grow up, the more problems I shall face, the more humiliated I shall be. I consulted few speech therapists, and had certain amount of improvement but stuttering would again come up to high level once I left the speech exercise practices. Sometimes the stutter was too unpredictable. In few short spans in my life, stuttering would almost disappear, and I would be happy about it, but it would again come back suddenly some day again. I have had this sort of episodic dis-fluency for years together.

This was all I did today, expressing my thoughts in words, in someway different to the numerous other days, when I'd just recall and forget. Could I ever get my voice back,

or would I always be the person, who thinks - "A million things I'd like to say, but I can't!"

A fox is the life of the party

He stands tall as always, on a hilltop.
Its dusk, and the sky's all crimson.
He's a big tiger and looks down the valley.
A bunch of foxes have a party in the valley. They have hired a DJ, fixed up disco lights. There's so much beer that you could drink all night.
At places, foxes and vixen have chats drinking cocktail after cocktail, talking endlessly, while the DJ adds more tracks to queue. Such is the sight in the valley, the lonely tiger just looks in despair. He sits down on the hilltop to relax, but still glances toward the fox party.


Just then, a white tiger comes in & joins the big tiger.
"Hey mate, you looked depressed..", the white tiger tries to look jolly. "No, I'm ok", says the big tiger. "Oh, not again mate. I tell you, just look at yourself! You're a real big tiger. You have got power. Your ancestors were kings. They are just mere foxes. To me they look like dogs", and the white tiger bursts in laughter.

"You're too drunk. Leave me alone", retorts the big tiger. "We both are drunk. And just look at yourself, you're sitting head hung", the white tiger tries to convince him to cheer up.

The big tiger looks at the fox party for a minute and speaks, "You know white, we all are so drunk. We just had the purest vodka ever made, that those foxes could never have in their lives. But, they are happy. And we're not!

And the tigers-are-the-king-of-the-jungle stuff is crap. It was true once upon a time long long ago. Now foxes are the life-of-the-party."

The white tiger stills tries, "You need to look at life from a positive perspective. Being a pessimist never changes things."

"Ok, but wake up to the real world. Our world! And the crap that happens to us!"

"You know, your power is within you. You could just go down and scare all the foxes away with your roar. Aren't you happy? Your roar could vibrate the jungle!", the white tiger now tries to talk sense.

"So, what?  At the end of the day, all foxes united could kill you, or make you crippled. Who will come to defend me then? Just you. I have got one friend. And I am not happy."

The big tiger stands up with tears and adds more, "You know what I got for being honest? You know what I got for having this big and useless heart? You know what I got for being so nice to everyone? You know what I got for not telling lies? Not trying to be cunning? You know what I got for doing the divine act of following my mind?"
He points at the bottle, "Alcohol in a cold dark place and Tears."
The big tiger is weak and speaks more, "I would be happier to be a fox rather be so powerful and cry! There are just a handful of tigers left in the entire country. You see, tigers don't survive. One who is honest sucks! He dies! What kind of life is this?"

The white tiger falls silent. May be he starts thinking...

How I found "Golden Eyes"

It was one sunny day in the 90's, the end of the 90's to be precise.
I was 9 and at school, I was inside a class with short desks for kids.
It was afternoon and sun-rays came in through the window slits, and filled the room with a warm and well-lit ambience.

I was still a back bencher then and yawning,
and waiting for time to run fast,
and the big bell to ring.

As my eyes began to close, a teacher came in, with a cute little girl. And interrupted the class. May be I was lost and tired, but any one could well figure out that she was a new student.

The teacher introduced her.
I was still a back bencher then,
and may be she wasn't very loud,
and I was lost in thoughts,
that I didn't hear her name.

All I could feebly hear was "Bombay". So, she's from Bombay. Great.
But why do they still say "Bombay", when my dad just pointed out Bombay is no more Bombay? Its Mumbai. Whatever, people need time to change a habit.

Now my eyes shifted to the girl. Clad in a neat school uniform she was. White hair band and neatly combed hair.
I couldn't see her shoes, 'cause I was still a back bencher then!
She was dressed exactly the way our school diary mentioned the dress code.

She looked sober and relaxed and normal. No fear, no nervousness. She joined the lonely oily haired girl in the first bench,
and I started yawning once again.
Why? 'Cause I was still a back bencher then!

Other kids around me murmured about her.
I still couldn't hear her name.
At the end of the day, when the big bell rang,
and we rushed out of class, I checked her out once again.
Old habits die hard, 'cause I was still a back bencher then!

God, she was cute. Fair like child snow-white she was. Her hair band made her descent, look disciplined, and she had still the same look and a smile was not yet on her face.
I was excited,
just as when you get a new gift and are about to open.
The next day, I got to know her name. But, wait, it was an awkward one.
I mean, a sweet name, but different.

Now she was the cutest girl in the class. She had topped the list. I swear if there were Facebook that day, I would have updated my status and 'like'd her profile pic. If I weren't an introvert, and afraid of strangers, I would have went and talked to her.

Days went by. She used to be the top of my crush list all those days. No one had broken the record. More days went by, she was still there. I never got to hear how she talks or what she talks about.
I was too afraid to approach and start a conversation. I was still a back-bencher then!

One day a teacher made a remark, about her name.
And that was the day I figured out the meaning of her name.
The teacher said 'Sonakshi' means 'Golden Eyes'.
Like always, and to make sure she was not too outspoken,
that day, she just smiled and said nothing.

Good stuff came in 6th grade. It was the year 2000.
All around was the new millennium buzz and the Y2K bug.
I wasn't a geek then,
but I was sure Y2K was something bad for computers.

More Good stuff was,
in one situation she actually talked to me.
And that was the last time we talked.
Kids of the class were running helter skelter in a lunch break,
where I was seated at a single desk in the front.
(I was punished to sit in a single front bench, away from other back-bencher pals of mine, so that the teacher could keep an eye on me)
She was there and playing cheerfully with the other students.
Like always I wished I had the courage to go and speak.
Just then she came to me, bent over and asked "Hey, why don't you join us?"
I was puzzled because those were going to be first words that I was supposed to speak to the girl I had been wanting to talk since long.
"No. I am not interested", I said, still nervous, although I wanted to.
"Come on. Its fun!", she said and went away.

I don't remember much of what happened later.

The next year, in 7th grade, 2001, there was another 'New Millennium' buzz, for those who argued that a millennium starts from 1 and not 0.
I was into other stuff this year. I had turned naughty and was found mostly in supervisor and class-teacher's rooms.

I don't remember well, may be my friend circle shifted. I forgot "Golden Eyes" and her "shiny eyes". She had left school that year.

It had been some 10 years, that she left.
And all these days, occasionally I used to think about the "why-dont-you-join-us" day. And slapped myself for being a coward by not talking to her further.
Life doesn't stop anyway, so I moved on with it.
"Golden Eyes" was no more in my class. Even if I had courage now, I couldn't talk to her.

I tried asking people many-a-times, about her whereabouts,
and no one had any idea. I kept guessing,
may be she had gone back to Bombay, oops, Mumbai.

Those days I thought, lost people could never be traced.
So I would meet her if I was lucky enough.
Like it happens in movies, that old friends meet after years!

Orkut came in '05. And I searched her name. No results. I didn't find the "Golden Eyes" I was looking for. I thought to myself once again, social networks wont help. It was all fate that would help. Eventually I left searching social networks.

In 2010, the old "Golden Eyes" appeared in the Friend Suggestions, in Facebook.
Eureka, I found her. I tried to make sure she remembers me. She did.
And that was fate........

My First Bike Review, published in mouthshut.com

Yamaha SS125:

 

I got my SS125 just 3 days back and have done hardly 150 kms on the bike. I want to share my true experience with the bike till now.

About SS125:
SS125 is the successor to Yamaha Gladiator Type SS, and Yamaha completely dropped the Gladiator name now. Through the years Gladiator has been re-designed and refined 4 times. And SS125 is the latest version, with the best design and graphics and the best handling. The SS125 and Gladiator Type SS have all similar specifications(Physical, Electrical and Mechanical) except the colors and graphics.

Why I bought this bike:
I consulted mouthshut.com and read alreviews of Gladiator before buying it. Gladiator Type SS had the highest rating among all the bikes I had listed for buying, and it had a 99% recommendation. My friends had short-listed the following bikes: Honda Shine 125, Bajaj Pulsar 135LS, and Yamaha Gladiator/SS125.
Honda Shine was fine and engine sound was really smooth, but it lacked the good looks and the features that other bikes in its class had.
About Pulsar I’d like to say, Pulsars have become too common these days. I mean, just throw a stone randomly at a bike in traffic and it would be a pulsar. Moreover I personally don’t prefer Bajaj.
Yamaha SS125 was like the solution to all my needs. It had the best looks, comfortable riding posture, great handling and awesome power!

My observation in the first 150 kms:
The bike is equipped with a 5 speed gear box and a tachometer which makes the bike sporty. Front Disc brakes are perfect. The only thing this bike lacks(and could have made this better) is a digital console which most bikes have. In addition it has a Racing Cowl, which they call the engine cover, which adds a lot to the sporty look.
I am a 6 feet tall person and I was worried about whether a 125 cc bike would look good for my height, but its amazing to find this bike suits me perfectly and I’d recommend it to tall persons too. It has decent dimensions for a tall person:( Overall length x width x height                                    : 1995 x 730 x 1110 mm).

Performance is amazing, but the only con is a bit low torque at 3000-4500 rpm(Initial Pickup is bit poor). But I can assure it, the bike is a beast at more than 6500 rpm. So, the bike is not so good for very heavy traffic like Cuttack city in Orissa. If yours is a metro or a semi-urban with medium traffic then this bike is gonna rock.

The gear shifting pattern(1 Down, 4 Up) is again sporty and comfortable. The bike may fail to start if it is exposed to very cold weather and/or left abandoned for a lot of days. But in that case, the choke works quite well.

I wasn’t sure about road-grip when I found this bike doesn’t have wide rear tires (my first bike was a Bajaj XCD with narrow tires, and its grip used to suck!). But when I rode SS125, I found the road grip is excellent for the narrow MRF Zapper tires too. You don’t slip off on wet and sandy roads.

It has a half-chain cover and machine gun type muffler (silencer) which again adds to the sportiness. The silencer runs parallel to the rear seat, another trait of a superb design!

Mileage:
The last time I refueled, I got a mileage of 47kmpl, which is not bad for a new bike without even the first service done. And I have been riding almost all of the time with a pillion. I had talked to other customers of the SS125 in a Yamaha Service center in Bhubaneswar and all of them claimed that the mileage goes up to 55-60kmpl after the service.

Performance:
I haven’t yet tested the acceleration from 0-60kph yet. But I guess that will be around 7-8 seconds. I’m not quite sure. The best part of performance is that the bike doesn’t vibrate till 65 kph. I haven’t rode faster yet. Accelearation is the best at a range of 6000 rpm.

Cons:
The only noticeable con is a bit low torque at lower engine speeds. But it isn’t very less. It’s Ok. But its a bit less then Honda’s CB Twister 110 cc. But the CB Twister would shake and vibrate your balls off at speeds greater than 60kph and SS125 will take you to 120 kph easily. So, I guess a small ’con’ for this bike wont really matter for all the good features it has.
Headlight luminosity is slightly lesser than the Honda Shine, but its isn’t that bad. Its Ok.

Lastly, I have trusted Yamaha and have been obsessed with buying Yamaha bikes. I had a RX135 bike once, and it used to rock. And I believe this bike wont let me down too.

If you are a youngster and looking for a sporty and reliable bike with great performance in the 125/135 cc segment, then go for it! You will never regret.

Near the withered tree, where I got down to pee..

He stands on the roadside.
He stands there all day looking at people heading to Infocity.
He keeps looking at students driving to CEB,
shouting and singing on the way,
and those who get down from their bikes to pee.

But no one looks at him,
he is unnoticed, by the citizens,
and immigrants of the place.
Was he always a withered tree, or was he someday a colorful one, which people wished to throw a look, and lovers looked at his flowers with a hope to get some for their girlfreinds?

To citizens, he's just a non-living object, that lies on the roadside. Most of 'em never found out, that he's is actually rooted to the soil, rooted to the history of this place, since the long years when we weren't here.

Yes, he's non-living, 'cause he's not a Homo Sapien. He's literally a 'it', not a 'he'. I realized this as soon as I found that I started the post with a 'he' and ended up with 'it's and later corrected them.

Today, lets forget its a 'it'. Lets make it a 'he', just for an hour and let's hear the story, it has to tell.. Let me pen down its biography for you to ponder, we're not alone, let alone realize we're selfish.

He started off some 20 years back; just when we popped out at some hospital, he opened his eyes beside his mother. We learned to walk, run, talk and scream. We started moving around. He got rooted to the soil.
His mother grew older besides him. He was happy within the dense forest, and he being a small kid was loved by all. Every morning sun-rays came in through the leaves of his mother and caressed his small twigs.

A narrow bent road through it, most part of it shady. Villagers went by, rested in the shade. Some played cards and fled home before dusk, letting him, his mom and neighbors rest in place, with animals of the wild among them to take sleep.

One day, engineers arrived, and surveyed the area. He never figured out, his happy days were going to end. He would never know, trees around the city were cut down to make space for new human beings that were born and migrated into the city. The next day, men started axing his mother who was quite old now. He could do nothing but just watch her fall down, when those government officials killed her. He couldn't cry, 'cause he hasn't got eyes. His neighbors were slaughtered and their bodies taken away to build stuff.

He got depressed, not able to withstand the massacre of his friends.

In a few days, his tears dried up.

In another few days, he got used to 'losing his friends'.
He got used to not crying while watching his other friend die.

He was lucky. He was rooted at a place where the government hadn't planned to place tar and gravel.
He wasn't going to be killed, at least for quite many days.

Those villagers didn't come, no more playing cards. He missed it.
He was pissed off with the noise that automobiles made, that traveled everyday. Smoke filled the place, and he figured out, he cant breathe.

Life had become hard. He struggled to see his people die. He struggled to live his early life, the routine one.
And now he struggled for fresh air.

Days went by. More misery came. Humans have a quote. "Time heals all pain". But alas, that never worked for him.

He figured out, there was something wrong with the environment. And that, the climate wasn't good to him as well. He grew older, lost leaves.

Now, all of his neighbors are no more. Killed and deported. He still stands alone. He's not strong. He's not afraid. He's not lucky anymore. But he doesn't care, that he's the next one to be felled. Because he is rooted to the space meant for a highway, not for his village.What's life, if you were all alone and lost all your folks? Would you even care to live?

May be, in a couple of months he won't stand there anymore. And a 18-wheeler truck be parked over the place, while its roots lay underneath rotting, and preserving the pain of his lifetime...

Where are we heading to?

Lines from a forgotten day..

I question, the Silence of my Heart,
today,
Who's the one who played the game?
Its an echo from within,
which answers, its you, just you...

You have crossed over,
the walls of my memory,
and returned to your place,
just as merrily as you came in..
But, my feet,
could never cross the border,
I still remain a Prisoner Of War,
in your memory,
even when I was set free..

I could never figure out,
why the distance
kissed my innocence..

Who is the one who played the game?

Its an echo from within,

which answers, its you, just you...

At times I look at the sky,

and laugh at myself..

someday, my dreamy mind,

was set to build a dreamworld..

An unseen force,

demolished it to ashes,

that housed my love,

for you..

Now I'm back to my place,

to build another..

You know why I'm doing this?
'Coz I don't believe in fate,
Its just that I love to..

Upma + Mountain Dew

How about writing an unusually funny post, rather than old philosophy? This is what I thought, while having breakfast at our college canteen. I immediately took this picture, to attach it to the post. LOL. I decided right there that today's post will be the "how-was-your-day" type.
10:10 AM
I and Shibesh ordered Upma and Mountain Dew at the canteen. Mountain Dew was of my favorites, although Shibesh argued "7Up is better!" At this time of the day, you would always find the canteen crowded. The man at counter had a really tough time, taking orders & collecting money. There were lots of hands with currency notes pointing towards him. In a minute, he suddenly shouted - "How the hell, am I gonna deal with you, if everyone shows me 100 rupee notes? Take out some change!" May be he was exhausted with change notes, and was frantically looking for some 10 or 20 rupee notes, which he didn't get.
I looked at Shibesh's hand where he had a 50 Rupee note. I expected the man to shout again at him, seeing the note, but luckily he didn't.
10:15 AM
We were at a table having the food. I noticed the scene of the occasionally crowded place. There was a good-looking girl at a corner table with her friend, who was yet another pretty girl. The girl was feeding the other girl with a spoon. Every new guy who entered the canteen, glanced towards them, before ordering anything. At a table adjacent to ours, were a group of 8 to 10, discussing serious issues related to IPL. Its a not a new thing, to find people discussing IPL these days. It was a craze. In another corner, you could find someone hooked to his cell phone and talking endlessly. And at other places, small groups of 3 to 4 people were writing lab records.
10:30 AM
We were in a "instructor-less" classroom. Most of our classmates were found there. We had DSP Lab at 11AM, so lot of them were busy in writing lab records, including Shibesh who was copying down from mine. Today was a special day, because I had completed the task in time, after so many days. Other members of our BBC (Back Benchers Community) Sikal and Arvind had joined us. When we get together, the Devils in our minds come forward and we plan mischief. Suddenly Sikal threw a broken glass from the window pane onto the floor, breaking it to a hundred pieces and a noise of broken glass (which I love) echoed the bit empty classroom. Most of other guys looked back. Someone in the front, didn't like it and yelled - "What's this nonsense?"
Shibesh replied - "Shut the fuck up!" And he went away. Few minutes later, when I was about to take out my iPod to listen music. Sikal threw another piece of glass on the floor, following another such lovely noise. This time, Sumit (not a BBC member), unable to bear it, shouted, "Wouldn't people get hurt by those broken glass pieces?" To this Shibesh had another quick reply - "No one walks bare foot here!" Very soon their argument intensified with louder voices, making the other record-writers look away from there notebooks, and stare at us. I was just thinking, what was the best way to throw a glass onto the floor so that it breaks into the maximum possible number of pieces. Eventually they cooled down, although no one seemed to compromise.....
This was the first incident when someone opposed an event of BBC. Today's a special day.

Will life take a U-turn?

Will life take a U-turn or shall it be like today, a one-way road? Let's go 10 years into the future, where I have for you, the story of reality.
Its the year 2020, I am sitting on a bench in forest park, in the southern side of the city. Suddenly I remember the last time I visited this place, back in 2010. It was early evening, and amidst my thoughts, I noticed people jogging around, old people who came for a evening walk, love birds 'walking and talking' (inspired by idea's TV Ad). This was the place I spoke out my emotions loud for the first time, and shared everything with Ashu. I had described, how I messed up my life, why I wasn't that what I was supposed to be. Ashu proposed various solutions, and it seemed I sorted out the odds. But life was a one-way road, and it became messed up again very soon. There was no U-turn, you had to move ahead, and if you apply brakes, you'd collide with the vehicle behind you.
Today most of the things were still the same, except that the park looked more crowded. And today, I was alone. One thing that I always wanted to have, was with me. It was a Macbook Pro, sitting on my lap right now. These days connectivity is no more a barrier, with several wi-fi hot-spots around the city and 3G data cards getting more affordable. If I wanted I could be blogging, and could be online at Facebook 24X7. But being hooked to these machines and the virtual world for years together had finally made most people like me, now sick of computers. The day I got the Macbook and first touched it, I felt vibrations of attachment, building up within me, as if it were to be my life-partner.
The Facebook homepage was wide open in front of me, though I wasn't continuously gazing at the screen. Now, I had just so many friends that, not less then 10 updates would appear every minute, I refreshed the News Feed. Last year I returned from Gangtok, fed up with eating momos, the most famous traditional delicacy of Sikkim. This old attitude of not being able to one place for too long, had made travel a lot. Now I was back to get settled at the place, from where I popped out.
An hour passed looking at the Facebook page and recollecting old days. The next time I looked away from the screen, I saw a person approaching me, with a familiar face. I remembered Shibesh who had in college, once written a blog about his future, inspired me to follow him and write something like his post. He was the lone dude of our class, and a member of BBC (Back Bencher's Community). It was him, I recognized him because he still had the same look as in college. I expected he would cry out - "Hi, Steve Jobs" ( he used to call me Steve or Jobs or Steve Jobs, because those days I was so crazy about Apple, and such a big fan of Steve Jobs, that I used to run around like the brand Ambassador of Apple.) He said - "How are you, dude?"
"I am great. What about you?", I replied and was about to minimize the Facebook page, when he turned the thing towards him and exclaimed - "Wow, you finally got one! Kitne mein liya?". "Approx 1.4". This wasn't the first time, that I was asked the price. People (those who think Macbook are just like IBM Thinkpads) used to jump off their seats when they heard, I got this for 1.4lacs, and tell me - "You could get two Sony Vaios with that. Or you could get a Karizma ZMR if you wouldn't have wasted so much money. " And people like me who were in love with the Aluminium body of Apple products and the beautiful logo, would just say one word - "Wow!" We were happy to meet after 8 years. We were definitely not in touch, after he left for a job in Dubai. He had the same story to tell, being fed up of the place where water is more expensive than petrol, he returned to Bhubaneswar, to settle down. The memories of Mayfair Lagoon, and Haka brought him back. He was back to taste momos in Haka, in contrast I fled from the place full of momos. Later on, I got to see his new girl friend's pic, in his cellphone. "This is the best looking gf you ever had", I said  snatching the phone from his hands. "Ya, she is. But why are you still single man, get hooked up", he sounded as if he would take to me place where they sell gfs in a mega sale.
"It isn't my cup of tea. I never have stable relationships", I admitted. Few minutes later, he asked that which I wasn't wanting to talk about. "How is Sandy?"
I became speechless for a while, but over the years, and with the change of my adolescent attitude, I could relax and answer - "She passed as a parameter to another function. I returned to main." ( to add a bit of programmer humor). Shibesh turned about his place and said - "What? She got married? You are such a loser man." I was again silent, deciding the next programmer joke to be told, when he added - "And who's that moron, she got away with?". "Why on earth would he be a moron? He's good."
"You met him?"
"No, I mean if she chose him, he would definitely be better than me, right? Simple logic."
"Its loser's logic", we sighed in unison, and looked away from screen.
I got up from my seat walked 2 steps ahead into the jogging track, a old man came in my way, and I had to step back. With another sigh I spoke, "There's no U-turn yet....."

A thing of beauty is joy for ever.

A thing of beauty is joy for ever.

Confused? Don't be. I'll explain.  [ As I always do :) ]

An ordinary thing appeals, only temporarily. 

A beautiful object, appeals your senses permanently.

Her loveliness never fades.

Never shall she make her admirer disappointed.

Her creator may pass into nothingness.

But she is immortal.

She's a ray of light that consoles her admirer,

when he recedes to occasional miseries.

She is a genius, who speaks without her voice.

Artists 'create', but admirers 'define'.

She shall not understand,

'coz there aren't yet invented, mirrors for emotions.

She will be just be by God's Grace,

another beautiful thing.

She shall never find, the words of philosophy,

she just created, in someone's heart, within.

She would be still admired,

whoever she'd have been.

...
This is my version of John Keats' famous poem, "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever". 

I am not an Atheist!

This post will be about God.

Almost every person who knows me well, including my parents, think I'm an atheist. One who does not believe in God. Its true I never visit temples, even if I have to go, I don't perform the Hindu rituals that most people do. I don't have any wallpapers of God in my laptop or cell phone. Still, in reality, I'm not an atheist.
I have a completely different perspective of dealing with God, which I will write down today. I was inspired by the Vedic Culture, which we were taught in early years in school, in a no-credit, extra subject called M.Ed (Moral Education). God is Omnipotent (has complete power over all things), Omnipresent (present everywhere), and Omniscient (seems to know everything).
God is an object of no form, no shape, even no name! We have named him God. From childhood I have been fascinated by the lot of different customs and rituals that people perform for God. I will just share some customs that Hindus observe:

Someday, my parents said to me - "Wherever you are, never take non-veg on a Monday". Most of us become vegetarians on every Monday. Some are vegetarians on Monday and Thursday. The rest of the days of the week, they are non-vegetarian. I don't understand, whether you are cheating God by being vegetarian for a day? People will say, every Monday is dedicated to Lord Shiva. So, all worshipers of Shiva don't take Non-veg on every Monday. Does Shiva go for a holiday the very next day, when you enjoy boneless chicken? There is God, when you don't take non-veg. And there is same God near you, whenever you take non-veg. Human beings are omnivorous by nature. God made us Omnivorous. So, it definitely isn't a sin to eat non-vegetarian food. Everyone has the freedom of  choosing their own food habits. But the custom of being vegetarian for 1/7th of your life (One day out of 7 days in a week), and being a non-vegetarian for the remaining 6/7th period, doesn't seem a worthy habit.

We take off our shoes before entering inside a temple. I never understand why we do it. Just because its God's place? But God is everywhere, so why don't we go without footwear to college? The whole world is the home of God, right? Why don't we walk bare foot?

We think we did a favor to God, by breaking coconuts and offering sweets right? But does God ever take food? I dont understand the concept of "prasad".

I never mean to disrespect or create hatred in the minds of the readers. If it were so, I wouldn't use a Uppercase G in the word 'God'.


Think about it.

You came to mend my broken heart?

This post is about love.

Like everyday I slept with her thoughts over-riding every other thought in my mind. People called me 'absent minded' after she came (into my life). Those beautiful emotions were growing stronger every day, every moment of talking to her. I was slowly going to retire. I knew, the very next morning I wake up, I would start with her. The very same night it will end with her. And all through the day.... of course it will be her..
My mind passes to delta (which means, I fall asleep). I don't remember my last thought very well. She was with me the whole day (in my mind), she was making me lose myself. And now she again comes in delta, in a dream. I find myself in a new place, a really crowded place.
I walk into a hall, with three of my great friends. She was there on the dais, with beautiful attire. Yes, it was a big day, her wedding day. I keep looking at her for a few minutes, thinking about all my past interactions with her, and how insanely great she was looking. And by then, I'd definitely figured out, that I wasn't the groom. I was a guest. The other guys was checking out hot females and the food. She saw me and waved at me. I didn't go nearer, rather came back. The next moment I was outside, with my cell phone, and called her. I had also figured out by now, that I was meeting her after quite a long time.
I have a bad habit, of often not saying 'Hello' and using synonyms for greetings, on phone. She never forgets it and says 'Hello' first, in every situation. That day too, she started with 'Hello'. "Kahan chale gaye?", she started. She was as normal as the first day she talked to me. I wasn't normal, because I was the one who was going to lose her.
"Dear, its hurting a lot. I don't know why." I said. She stayed silent for atleast a few seconds, as she used to, in gtalk. When I would say "r u there?", she would wake up. "I am really in pain. Its hurting like hell." The happiness in her voice had faded, and she said "I told you, it will hurt. But you were the one happily playing with danger." She was getting close to crying. Of course it was a big deal called "love". Like always I made myself strong again, and said "Ok. Ok. Don't get sad. Its your wedding day. Don't spoil the best day of your life. I will manage my stuff. Congrats." And hung up.
Manage? What the hell? I was talking as if I would go and speak to Cupid about it, yelling "Fix it!!". Then comes the toughest part. Guys reading this post would start laughing at me now. But its true, all stories don't end well. I burst out crying right there forgetting where I was. I had lost my life. A new life would start from now, without her. The next moment I found hands of consolation patting my shoulder. The don't-worry-Everything-will-get-fine stuff went on for few minutes. The three guys with me Ashu, Inkit and Avinash were looking the same that very instant. All had the same dull faces. They were at their best, in consoling. I said, I had lost my life. Then how the hell was I still alive?
And if you laughed at me, you need to think, wont it hurt if you lose your life? Don't you cry when you're about to die? Don't you wish to go back into the past, and fix things up? I wasn't searching the streets for love. I found it on the way. In the end, I lost something which was never mine. I lost a beautiful thing. Its a different story, that I don't deserve her. There always are better people, but does that ever have to say, I can't fall in love?
Now don't expect it to be a Bollywood movie, that I'll say "End main sab kuchh thik ho jata hai." Some stories have dead ends...
And after all, it was just a f***ing dream! :)

Confessions of the sub-conscious mind.

Everyone wants to straighten his/her messed up life. And one will say a big "Thank you" to any person, who shows you the way, to actually make things straight.
I Googled "The subconscious mind" today and I joined a mailing list which posts updates about "Power of the Sub-Conscious Mind". I got two audio books, one ebook and two posts within 3 hrours of joining.
The first post was about the three minds which every person has. We have not one, but three minds. The conscious mind, The subconscious mind and the super-conscious mind. The first two minds are within ourself, but the super-conscious mind is some sort of an universal entity, and is the one which is supposedly responsible for intuition and creativity. Where the super-conscious mind really is, hasn't yet been validated by scientific research. They say, we are all connected to each other via the super-conscious mind. We all have access to it, so its considered a part of our mind.

The conscious mind is the mind that thinks. We use it to solve problems and take decisions. The sub-conscious mind is one which can not be directly controlled by us. Some phenomena can be best explained with real world analogies. Consider a captain with his crew. The crew obey any orders of the captain. But if a captain doesn't give any orders, the crew would just do things that they think is right, which may not be always 'right'. Same is the case with our minds. The conscious mind is the captain and the sub-conscious mind is the crew. May be in this case, the crew (sub-conscious mind) is not as smart, that they follow orders instantly. This crew is a bit dumb!
It needs to be trained, like a parrot for every small task that it will do automatically. The work of the sub-conscious mind is automation. It is our assistant, who does small and repetitive tasks automatically.
When we first ride a motor cycle, we are taught how to handle the clutch, gears and throttle. We used to pay lot of attention to shifting gears, in the beginning. When we get habituated, we never even think of those controls; it seems as if our arms and legs automatically do, what we want the vehicle to do. Here the sub-conscious mind comes to play. It makes us adjust the controls automatically, when we actually think something else! There are several other examples of automatic processes, that we do everyday, which are controlled by the sub-conscious mind. I would like to share an excerpt from a webpage on inner beliefs:

"What it means here is your reality or the life you are experiencing now is actually a reflection of the beliefs in your subconscious mind. Many people change from one job to another, but realize that they are still getting the same problem everywhere they go. What they don't understand is that instead of changing the external circumstances, they should change their inner beliefs. Once their beliefs change, they will be attracted to new people, new jobs and the world around them will change according to the new beliefs in their subconscious mind."


The subconscious mind needs to be programmed, in order to work. Thinking positive makes your subconscious mind, take it granted, that everything is definitely fine. You fool it to believe that all is well! Negative thoughts not only fade positive imprints that already exist, but make a permanent place in you subconscious mind, which will cost you, your happiness. The theory of the subconscious mind is about how to unleash the power of the subconscious mind, by reprogramming it to remove all evil thoughts that already exist. This post said just this much.
I will share more about the next post. :)

The three stories of Steve Jobs

Most of us Indians, including me, never heard the name - Steve Jobs, till I saw Macbooks in movies, and wondered what the Apple logo really meant. He was undeniably an extraordinary man, who co-founded Apple Computers and Pixar Animation. I bumped into a 14 minute youtube video, today morning, where Jobs addressed Standford University graduates at one of their convocations. He narrated three stories from his life, so touching, that I'd never expected the life of such a man to be.

Folks, I am narrating his speech, which I jotted down from the video. Have a close look at it. I'll comment more on his life at the end of the post.

STEVE JOBS COMMENCEMENT SPEECH


STANFORD UNIVERSITY, JUNE 2005


Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.


Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.


The first story is about connecting the dots.


I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college. This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting. It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example. Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well- worn path, and that will make all the difference.


My second story is about love and loss.


I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together. I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.


My third story is about death.


When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.


About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.


I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.


This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.


When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. it was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. It was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stewart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.


Thank you all, very much. "


Steve Jobs


The highlighted text in the above speech are the most powerful lines he said. This guy was pretty confused about what he is born to do. But he found out his passion, his love, which was computers, early in life. Most of us haven't yet figured out what we love. Apple was the first company that built "beautiful" computers. Prior to that, the ordinary man, or the aam aadmi, never expected that someday he shall buy a computer for his home. IBM was still there, but all that they built were tin boxes with lights. To run them one would hopefully need a M.S. in Electrical Engineering. Steve built computers that ordinary men would want to buy. Even Bill Gates admitted that to build a standard, a thing needn't be just something different. Its should be really new, and must capture people's imagination. Macintosh was the only machine that met the standard. For those of you who don't know, and think Windows was the first GUI, I would like to tell you, Bill Gates copied Windows from the Mac.
Gates too loved computers, but he was set to make money. And he did! But Steve and his partner Woz tried to build new things, and build new standards, which Microsoft can never be at par.
I would like to tell you what standards really mean. Few days back, I accidentally dropped my iPod for the first time. I got nervous, thinking whether it'll still work, and survive the impact. One of my friends who was with me exclaimed - "Don't worry, nothing's happened. Its an Apple!" This is height of the standard where Apple currently stands. I was still nervous when I picked it up, because it had bounced off a really hard surface. I plugged in the earphones, and pressed the play button. And yes, Apple had once again kept its standard high, as music flowed in. There's still a lot more praise that I have about Apple, that needn't be explicitly mentioned here. Literally, Macintosh was the world's first GUI. Microsoft, copied, built Windows, and went on with creating lot of products, which makes it a giant today. In another video, Steve admitted, that he didn't have any problem with the success of Microsoft, because they have earned it themselves. The only thing that he is concerned about is that they have got no taste, no original thinking, and build really third grade products. Find what you love, do what you love. Don't do something, that people want you to do, because you have got just one life, and have little time left to live. These values and morals are an art, which will give you the best out of life.
My next post will be about us, the Indians, and what we lack.