The City of Contrast

My friends who had been in this city for long tells me that Mumbai is the best places to live in. Atleast in India. I wonder which part of Mumbai attracts them so much. Is it the tall buildings or Starbucks or the shopping malls or is it the people. I have no clue. This city is home to 20 millions people. Now 20 million is hell lot of people to fit in a single city. And yes, no matter how large the city is. Of these people, 54% does not even have home to stay. 

For the last 4 years, I have been living in this city called Mumbai. Believe me this city is no where close to what I imagine when I used to be a child. As a child I imagine this city to be full of colours and dream like. Now that I have seen it, it turns out to be just the opposite. Its colourless and full of dirt. Yes, you can literally find dirt everywhere here. Opposite to every skytower, there is a slum area where people live in shit. Speaking of this, I find the contrast this city provides to be very interesting. 

By contract, I mean the difference in the way people live and their life style. On one side you see people sleeping on roads, on the other side you find apartments where the no of floors outnumber the no of people staying. On one side, people die of hunger, on the other side you see people wasting food in restraurants, home etc. On one side, you see people driving a BMW, on other side you see people hanging on a local train. One one side you see people spending 200 bugs on single cup of coffee, on other side you see people struggle to get a cheapest to cheapest lunch. On one side you have shopping malls with no dust at all, one the other side you see only dirt. Such is the contrast of this interesting city called Mumbai. 

There is one thing I have to agree with my Mumbai lover's friends is that this city is safer than most of the Indian cities. By safer, I can't guarantee that if a girl walk alone in the morning at 2:00 am, you won't get raped. Though, there is a 80% chance that you won't. Also if you are a party guy and have lot of money, this is the best place in India to be. As a younger, you will enjoy this city. If you are not, this a dam expensive place to be. 

Goodbye 2014

2014 had been a good year for me. It's not that past years had not been good to me. Past years had been good too. Infact, every year had something special to offer. Each year taught me something new. Unfortunately, I could not capture past years like I have decided for this year. So without further adieu, lets start..

I started this year at Kolkota, the city of joy. Like every year I celebrated this year with my parents. I came to Kolkota directly from Delhi(after my solo trip to Himachal) to meet my parents. Thing is that I am not a party person. Most of the time, I prefer staying in a silent place and talking to friends, rather than hitting the bar or restaurant. 

This year in Jan, Vikram, one of my good friends from IIT Bombay gave me one of the best gift he could have ever given to me. He called me up for tennis. Till then, I hadn't touched the tennis racket after entering the corporate world. So, we used to get up at 6:00am in the morning and go for tennis. Believe me getting up at 6:00 AM in Jan and on Sat morning(after Friday night) is not an easy task. But we did. We used to get up every morning on Sat and Sun and go for tennis to IIT Bombay. Being an alumni, we got to play for free. To me, this game is a beauty. Every minute I spend on the court makes me feel like I am on heaven. Maybe I should write a separate blog and describe my learnings from this sport. Vikram stop playing from mid of Feb due to knee problem. However, I just couldn't. Game is still on for me. 

In mid Feb, something happened to me. I felt in love with one of the most beautiful girl I have even seen. I proposed her in no time and she accepted. This carried on for 3 months and in mid June, we decided to break up. I hate this thing called break up. But, sometimes we have no choice but to do it. The next few months was not an easy time for me. However, I had to move on. I would say those 3 months with her was one of the beautiful phase of my life. Somehow, I felt this episode made me a wiser and a stronger person. Well, that's all I can write about it. 

Oh, I more thing. Somewhere in Feb, for the 1st time in my life, I took part in half marathon running and successfully completed it in less than 2 hours time. This was a very big achievement for me and considering I ran after 3 months of inactivity, it meant even more. Come Jan this new year, I will be running in couple of more marathons including Standard Chattered Mumbai Marathon, 2015.  

On March, I visited Bangalore on an official trip. There I met my old school friends Alari and Jennifer after many years. Jenni's husband prepared a nice food for us. No wonder Jenni is gaining weight. Infact anyone would, if you have such a nice cook at your home. Honestly, I had a great time meeting my old and ofcouse happily married friends. 

On Oct, I travelled to Jaipur and Udaipur on another solo trip of my life. It was really hot at that time. Travelling these big cities in just 3 and half days can be quite hectic. I had to give many palaces a miss. I realized that  hurrying this way does not give you much joy. The best thing about these solo trips is that these trips give you confidence and make you independent in many tiny and unnoticeable ways. Moreover, my learning so far is that,  travelling solo takes fear away from your life.

lst week of December, I took 2 weeks of leave to visit my home-town. On the way, I also visited my old college at Guwahati. There I met some old college friends. I also had a nice photography session with my dear friend Sandip at IITG. Back home, I had a great time with my old school friends. I really miss these get together with my school friends back at Mumbai.

Last but not the least, this year I am back to consistent blogging after 4 years of on and off. Last time, I took such interest in blogging was during my engineering days. Now, I am enjoying this process of collecting thoughts and joding down into words. 

To sum up, every year has been a  mix of small and big things, good and bad times, sad and happy times. This year was no different. Like I said in the beginning, every year has something to offer, something new. This year, I made new friends, learned couple of new things, love endlessly, learned to stay clam or atleast put up a concious effort and more importantly learned to accept rejection and move on.

Well my expectations from next year. Nothing different from this year. Live life peacefully, maybe more passionately. Write more and read even more. Stay in touch with my friends and family. Ofcouse more tennis and miles and miles of running. That's it.

@Himalaya

With GG at Biere Club,Bangalore

The above two places are of Amer Fort, Jaipur

Nahargarh Fort, Jaipur

City Palace, Udaipur

With Mr. Sandip at IIT Guwahati Guest House

With my school friends at Kokrajahr

Diwali@office

At Pre-Christmas celebration at Don Bosco School, Kokrajhar

"If I have to live my life again, I'd will make the same mistakes, only sooner"- Tallulah Bankhead

Taking Things for Granted - Part 2

Coming Soon...

Taking Things for Granted- Part 1

Many times in my life I take things for granted. For instance, many times when my mom calls me up, I don't answer properly. Still, the next day, she would call me up with the same care and love. We take for granted that, no matter how we behave, our parents would love us anyway. Today when I see my parents growing old, I realize that we can't take our parents for granted. No doubt, our parents would always love us. However, somewhere in future, they will not be there to tell or show us how much they love us. Believe me at that time, we will be the one to miss them the most. 

We take our wife/husband or girlfriends/boyfriends for granted too. We wouldn't talk or show love to our dear ones as we think that no matter what we do they won't go anywhere. Its only when they leave us we realize how badly we miss them.

There are times when we take our friends for granted too. In times of need we would approach them and seek whatever help one could possibility get. However in merry times, we won't even call or ask how are they doing. If sometimes, they call us, we would respond them saying we are busy. In spite of all these, these friends would always be the first people to help us or support us in hard times without looking for anything in return. 

We have the habit of taking those things for granted that we get with ease or for free. Its only when we lose those things we realize the true value of them.

Ole to Fear

Every time I go to client meeting, I fear I may not be able to understand what the client is saying. I fear that I may not be able to figure out the problem the client is facing. I fear that I may not be able to ask the right questions. 

The thing is, this is not the only time I fear. I get the same fear when I play a tennis match in some tournaments. I have the same fear when I go on a solo trip to new places. I fear the same when I walk on the road alone at 2:00 AM in the morning. Does this fear stop me from doing things? Definitely not. 

People say that having a little fear is good. I agree with them. Fear more than anything tries to bring the best in us. Fear makes us put an extra effort. Due to this fear I am made to ensure that I do my homework before I go for client meeting or I have enough practice before I go for a match. 

Does that mean that fear never comes true? Well, it does comes true too. For instance in sports, sometimes I have feared about losing, I have lost matches. However, one thing I found about fear is that it is our best friend. It signals and challenges us do stuffs, stuffs that initially we found them to be impossible. Even now when I am writing this article, I fear what if no one likes my article. What if no one reads my article? What if people say this is a dumb article? I think fear teaches us to be brave. Moreover, it signals us to work harder and better.

So next time, when you fear, say 'Ole' to fear and move ahead.

“Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up” -Veronica Roth, Divergent

Trial & Error

Let me start this article by disclosing you one thing. I am an output of trial and error. Let me also disclose one more thing. I am not the only one. You too are. Is it too much to digest? Ok. Let's hold on for a moment. 

Few days back, I was talking to one of my colleague in office about a bug in one of our software. He was dam sure that this bug was caused due to this issue. So we tried to fix that issue but the bug was still there.  

The reason I shared this incident is because many of us including me suffer from this disease called 'God Complex'. Now the symptoms of this disease is very simple: No matter how complex the problem, we think that we have the solution. In the above incident, my colleague thought he had the answer. Whereas this bug could have been caused by many other reasons. Instead of debugging through various ways, he insisted on trying this way only. The end result the bug was still there. Ultimately, we had to try on different set of ideas to fix this bug. In short, what we did was actually trial and error. 

God complex can be found every where. We find it among our doctors, engineers, scientist, politicians to name a few. We think that we know the solutions, though actually we know only a part of the solution. It may work. It may not work.

Many times, when we are in relationships, we are so sure that this is the girl/boy that we are going to marry. Now how many of these relationships turn into marriage? Perhaps around 50%, might be even less. Infact much lesser. Relationship is the process of trial and error. I know it does not sound good. Let see what happens in relationships.  Boy likes a girl and the girl likes the boy. They talk and try to know each other. They fight, cry, console and in the process test if they fit each other. If not, they break up and move on to the next relationship. So what are we doing here, trial and error.. trial and error.. trial and error. 

In sports, trial and error is no new concept. The coach thinks of a strategy based on his analysis, the team implements it. Will it work? Sometimes yes, sometimes not. If it works its well and good. If not, he has to find new strategy and try it out again. 

We do trial and error everyday in our lives. Be it the time we go to shop to buy a new pair of shoes or be it the time when we decide to start a new company. It is everywhere. Then, why is trial and error not an obvious thing? Perhaps, I will leave it for you to find out. Let me put forward another question. Suppose we have an electoral candidate who goes around saying this:

“I want to fix the health system. I want to fix our education system. I have no idea how to do it. I have half a dozen ideas. We try them out. They will probably all fail. Then we test some other ideas out. Will find some that work. We get rid of those that don’t“ - Tim Harford on TeD

Are you going to vote this candidate?  If yes, then trail and error is an obvious thing. If no, then you know why God complex exists among us.

"Sometimes a clearly defined error is the only way to discover the truth”

― Benjamin Wiker, The Mystery of the Periodic Table

PS: This article is an outcome of an brilliant lecture by Tim Harford, an English Economist at TeD on God Complex.

Entropy

First of all Happy Diwali to all my dear friends. Let's hope like every year, this Diwali too brings tons of happiness and brightness in our lives.

Now, you must be wondering on what subject I am writing on. Entropy! what the hell. Well, if you happen to read physics or chemistry in your school days, you will know about it. It's nothing but the measure of state of disorder. One must be wondering why on earth I am writing about this topic. After all, today is Diwali, I should be either celebrating Diwali with my friends or family or writing about some other good things in the world.

Well, to be honest there is something about Diwali that triggered me to write this article. Every year, during Diwali time, whenever I login in fb, I find my wall flooded with Diwali wishes like  'Wish all my friends a Happy and Safe Diwali' or 'Let celebrate this Diwali noise free' or 'Diwali is a festival of light not noise' etc etc. In short,people want Diwali to be celebrated noise and pollution free. Still we find people firing more crackers than lighting diyas. Every year we find pollution level going high on Diwali. Though we keep on saying that Diwali is a festival of light, we keep on doing the same every year.

The irony is that, though we hate disorders in our lives, somehow we tend to go/move towards it. Its like though we know that smoking kills, people still enjoy smoking. We know that speed can kill us, still we fantasize driving fast. We human being somehow enjoy the state of disorderness or in technical term high level of entropy. For instance, you can't expect children to sit down in one place and play. They will obviously move around here and there and enjoy among themselves. Or most bachelors would love to keep their room unclean or play music in volumes louder than our ears can bear. In simple words, entropy is all within us. No matter how much we want to avoid it, we only move closer to it.

I won't say having high entropy/disorder is always a bad state to be in. Sometimes being in a state of disorder is good too. Putting our-self out of comfort zone can expose us to what we are actually missing in our life. Take the case of our career itself, we might be in a good job that pays us good salary but still deep inside we might not feel  good. We feel we are missing something. So some of us who's entropy level is high would leave their job and go out to fill their voidness and there by giving birth to companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google etc or atleast failing while giving a try. While some high entropy people would leave their comfort life and travel places in search of perhaps what they even don't know.

“To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life.” Elizabeth Gilbert- Eat, Pray, Love