Vacations

Vacations!! Vacations are supposed to be relaxing, rejuvenating, recreating or rewinding you to the time of life you lost not so long in the plethora of life chores. If vacations happen to be just the opposite, you come back more tired and exhausted than before. I just had a vacation of the latter kind. Feeling more log-like than when I left, more tired than I was before and more irritated with the routine.

One reason why it turned out sour was that it was a trip that was meant for the unmarried/ married couple and not for family with children. We visited places over places every day with little time to rest. Starting early in the mornings and ending very late in the evenings, kids you know.

Now, I long for my kinda vacation. This my kinda vacation has different meanings based on the phase of life I am in. When I was unmarried, I would have just loved my recent vacation. When I got married, the recent vacation would have been ok with some amount of romance put in (this was more like a ladies and gents separate, college kinds vacation :/). When I have kids, now, I would like to wake up at my pace, relax, spend more time with family, talking and see places that can be seen at a leisure pace. So, after having a real family with kids and all (!!) vacation definition changes to more of relaxation and more family time than exploration and adventure.

Of Mediocrity

There are three kinds of people on this earth -

          Those who excel, those who don't care and then there is a whole lot of "mediocre".

The first two kinds of people do not have much to worry about when it comes to anything in life. The former has it easy and the latter does not even bother. The only category that is hard-hit in any and every aspect of life is the mediocre.

And this post is about
         Those - who have high aspirations but do not know where to start
         Those - who have great ideas but have no idea on how to turn them to reality
         Those - who cannot accept going down to the don't care category
         Those - who can do anything and everything to go up to the excel category but without a clue how
         Those - who, every time, struggle to get things their way
         Those - who are the mediocre.

Living a mediocre life is not easy, yet they form the the majority of the world's population. They can neither wholeheartedly follow people who excel nor give up. However, they make good followers. They have great ideas and can argue well. They weigh advantages and disadvantages of any situation but are scared to take the leap. Their aspirations are sky high but implementation capability is ground zero.

They are the people who have great belief in "Someday and One day". They seem to be the store house of energy and enthusiasm but deep inside, they live a life of misery. Unable to decide, unable to take the leap, unable to take risks, unable to think with a long term vision, unable to foresee situations, they accept whatever comes their way though that whatever is something they wanted never.

They sometimes do not have the knowledge required to take a leap of faith, they are never spotted from the crowd, oh yea, they are after all not excels. They look at excels with a jealousy admiration.

Yes, this is the weirdest post I have ever written in this blog. It lists out the characteristics of mediocre, uses the word mediocre a lot, it is very serious, it maintains a low key and not enthusiastic, it is not fun at all. It is because I decided to write about myself. My mediocre, mediocre self who does not know how to take a step towards changing my life to better, who is a slave of life's commitments, whose dreams and ideas are arrested inside a brain just because it is mediocre.

Yes, you can think of this post as a lament or the voice of a lazy woman or the reflections of an irresponsible human being. I will try hard to prove you wrong as I am a mediocre who cannot give up and go down but fail each time. 

Few Thoughts - actually a note of gratitude

I read a post on writing on the Litagram page on Facebook. It read something on these lines:

 "When it does not come roaring out, don't do it
   When it cannot manifest itself, don't do it:.

I am doing it today as it came roaring outside, it wants to manifest itself. I had the least idea of writing a blog post at 10:17 PM in the night of a working day, but the post wants to get written :)
Even when I write this line, I have the least idea of what am I going to write on this post or am I going to write something at all. It is so fascinating, this writing thing!

I have had some really crazy, hectic times at work. Those times made me realize several things in life. My strength, what  I am capable of, what is my actual weakness is vs. what I thought was my weakness. Most of these things came as a by product of working for KGS for a short time (no, I don't work there now). Which in turn means the realization came as a result of the interactions I had with people at KGS - a wonderful team of people there. If anybody gets a chance to work there, go for it without a second thought. They are the best lot I have ever worked with - real professionals :)

So, people who we meet in our lives shape up our life into something we might not even have imagined of! And that fascinates me a lot! Howsoever matured or capable or grown up you are, you still get influenced by people to a great extent. How one comes out of the influence is up  to the individual's ability. I am so glad that I realized the right things at the right time and all credits go to the team I mentioned above :)

People are fascinating! :)

I did not even think I will write a note of gratitude to my ex-colleagues and friends, but there it has written itself. Feels light, the post is over. Thank you for reading! :)

The Road Not Taken..

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

What has been the aim of life of most people in my generation? There was a well-defined path in the career front paved by people who were older and we had to take the same. The reasons being:

    1) It lead to a safe life style, a proven one with less chances to falter.

    2) We were unaware of any other path or had very less knowledge to boldly venture into        one.

    3) Our parents were afraid that if we do not take the used path, we may end screwing up        our lives.

    4) Parents did not have the time or money to support our dreams.
    5) Parents were unsure of how a job like musician or writer or instrumentalist could help          make a living. 

    What has our path been (at least to most of us)? We had to score high in our Higher Secondary Board exams as well as any and every entrance exam that made us eligible to join a Engineering course. Then choose a specialization of our liking (in Engineering, of course) if we had the privilege to do so (this is influenced by many factors like dream of our parents, cut-off marks we got, whatever course is available after all quota reservation, etc., ) or go with the one we were able to select at the counselling session. Score 70% and above in all Engineering papers so that we were eligible to sit for campus recruitment, fail in one or two aptitude tests, practice hard and crack the third one, clear interviews and wait eagerly for our names to be announced by the company HR in the selected list. 

    Many of you must be remembering how elated we felt at that moment, name getting called out in the selected list!! Woah, as if the whole world is under our feet! :D

    Join our first jobs with great excitement, work hard in training sessions, harder in the project we are assigned to, earn the goodwill of manager, start trying for an on-site opportunity and get one (this depends on many factors as well, let's not dig deep), work double the time we worked off-shore, get frustrated, switch companies, get a PR and citizenship of whichever country we work in, buy property, get married, indebted, think that we have got settled and be happy as if we have achieved everything in life just because "that" anna or akka did the same. 

    That had been our benchmark for at least a decade.

    Oh yea, there are ones who realized mid-way, "Oops, this was not what I wanted to do with my life" and started pursuing their passion - but this, at least in my generation, is a very less percentage, though this is on the increase - thanks to social networking, internet and ubiquitous computing.

    And there are others who want to pursue their passion but cannot really do so as they are afraid of losing monthly income, they are so indebted that they cannot afford to lose job even for a month!! 

    And there are also the ones who think that they were born to live the way described above and be happy and content with it - I respect you guys and would love to be like you, just that there is a problem with this heck of a mind of mine.. :)

    Looking back, I wonder what did I want to do with my life when I was 10, 12 and 15 years old and what I am doing now - My path has definitely got deviated from dreams of becoming a teacher, writer and architect to what I am today because of one of the reasons listed above. I am unable to get back to my dreams mid-way as I belong to the category of indebted.. 

However, there is still hope. I can still support someone who wants to live their dream - that someone will be my child. Yes, we can definitely support our next generation to live their dream life and help them realize and unleash their potential to the maximum possible extent. I am happy to see that kids of today do not have the "Following" mentality, they are more original and independent. With access to a whole world of information and contacts at the click of a mouse, the current generation possess what it takes to realize it's dreams and also make a living out of it. 

I would like to quote here my uncle's daughter Malini Venkatraman. She is a budding writer. Her imagination and creativity at the age of 8 is very mature. The flow of thought in her stories and the language amazes me. She is an example of how talented our next generation is. Her parents are very supportive of her and would still support her when she wants to take up writing or arts for a career. I am sure, this will happen with many kids of our generation. 

The next generation will have no regrets about the road they were unable to take because there will be none. 

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
     I took the one less traveled by,
     And that has made all the difference.

Storyline

What happens when a girl who does not want to grow up, who does not want to get into the "adult world" (as she calls it) has to go through events like marriage and child birth? What happens if she gets called "Aunty" by other kids when within herself, she is not even mature enough to be a wife?

What happens if a girl wonders at the task given to her at office - "how do they trust me with such a big responsibility?", what happens if a girl does not realize how old she is and what her responsibilities are and wonder at others of her age who act like "big" people?

Have you ever heard of a girl who wonders what her own personality is when she is just about 30 years old and feels lost? Heard of a girl who is in search of who she actually is and where she lost her identity in life? Known anyone who always attributed herself with people who she is related to and not build up a character of her own? Have you been friends with a girl for whom recognition from close ones means life? Know a girl who is always dependent on others?

Know a lady who does even the smallest thing wrong and gets corrected always and falls short in all ways? Who never gets appreciated for her small acts and so thinks that she has to work harder? Know a lady who did not realize what her self worth is for most part of her life?

Ever heard of a woman who realized all the above said when she was just about 30 and started mending her life? Picked up shattered pieces of her personality lost along the journey of life and put them all together to build up a whole new her? Who started realizing what self worth and self respect is? One who ponders often how does one learn to be responsible? How does one become mature?

I am thinking of writing a story about her. She who can be described as above.
What do you think about this girl? Please let me know. All inputs are welcome.

Thankful! 

Random

Thank you Mr J for your statement - "Don't blame your child, you are lazy" (the man in my life is sitting behind me, reading as I type and says - "Idhu ennamo unmai dhan" - This is true :D ) - it woke me up early today and made me write this post.

It is so wonderful how the mind works, going from one thought to another requiring a simple connection between the two. An example follows. I saw a girl who was crossing a part of the road between two volvo buses that are very close to each other, back to front. She is also on a call with someone. I wonder how is she able to do that without any fear, I would not. May be she trusts herself that she will be able to quickly move away if required. May be she trusts the driving skills of the volvo bus driver.

As I think of this, the thought of my "Things to accomplish in this year" comes to my mind. One of them being "Learn to drive a car". As I think of learning to drive a car, I see how congested the road is, and how skillful a person must be to drive a vehicle on such a road and wonder if I would be ever able to drive a car on this road. As I wonder, I think of why am I not confident enough when there are so many others who can do it (On the side, another thought is going on - my mom and dad both learnt car driving but could not drive it on the road because they were 40+ and were less confident. May be I am getting old, OMG so old that I lose confidence? Horror and no-am-not-so-old feelings cut this chain off while the other chain still continues). Then there is a determination to enroll myself to driving classes (till date it is not done!).

All of a sudden my attention is drawn to that one small piece of music from my favorite song (When one song becomes my favorite, I make sure that I listen to it to death, till I know all minute beats. A song looping for a hundred times is a very usual thing in my life) that I have missed listening to for so long. Yes, with all the above thoughts going on in my head, I was listening to music and suddenly the 2:56th minute of a 4:25 minutes song catches my mind by it's throat chocking the chain of thoughts. Then I keep repeating that single piece of music again and again wondering how did I miss this and Whatsapp my cousin Karthik about this and we wonder together :P :P :D :D (Anyone relate to this? Me and Karthik often do this, he recommends songs and I recommend pieces from it back to him)

How I wish I knew..

I have been wanting to write something "mommie" on my blog for sometime now. I was considering a series on "Why I won't become a mom for the second time"!! Somehow it just doesn't click. 
Then today, I happened to read several articles and blogs on mommyhood ranging from grief of losing a child to what a mom wanted to tell her daughter who planned to "have a family". Then it struck me. This is what I had been dying to write about, what a mom should tell a daughter who is planning to expand her family. 

A dear friend of mine kept asking a question on several occasions of my life ranging from the time we were planning to have a child to a few months after the baby was born. The question seemed to be a very normal one for me every time it was asked. However, now I realize how powerful a question it is. I realize that if I would have come up with a better answer for it, I might have reversed my decision of having a child or at least postponed the expansion for some more time. The person who asked me the question is not a mother, just that she is a couple years older to me. 

The great question that haunts me now is, "What motivated you to decide upon giving birth to a child?". My dear friend who asked the question, if you are reading this, please be informed that the "haunt" word just means I am getting mature :) I know, for all the silly answers I had given you over time would have either made you gape or laugh. How I wish I knew better :) Thank you my dear friend for asking me the question, the stupid brain of me has waken up after 3 to 4 years of the question and lead to this blog.

My first answer to the question was, "My mother once asked me how nice it would be to have a small baby who looks exactly like your husband, with those big eyes of his, just imagine". She hit the nail perfectly. She knew how head over heels (mad actually) in love I was on him (it was almost 2 years into marriage). That was the very first thing that made me think of a having a child. How I wish I had known then that giving birth to a baby is a very normal thing but what comes after that is life-altering (with no offence to people who are struggling with problems in having a family, this is purely an opinion based on my experience).

People, especially elders at home make the young ones believe that having kids is as easy as a breeze. Okay, I hear voices on your mind saying what happened to my rational thinking and spending time on getting to know what it is to have a kid. Yes, I did think of our lives getting changed after a kid, however, no amount of reading and no amount of discussion would give you the real picture of the practical difficulties of having a kid actually. Though I did not buy the point, "Once children are born they will grow up in no time, it is easy", I never thought that having a kid would entirely change one's physical, emotional, mental self (especially of the mom) to a point of no return. Yes, I have changed completely as a person that I do not identify myself as the person I was before becoming a mom.

How I wish someone in the family told me this would happen, all the anxiety, all the fear, all panic, all apprehensions and second thoughts, guilt and doubt . Now, I even come to think that people who are parents already do not want to talk about these difficulties just to have a sadistic pleasure (how mean of me!! I know..). Else, they were all well meaning, in the sense, talking of such things would make us rethink our decision. Whatever, I did not have all the information I now wish I had known then.

My dear friend who asked me the most important question on parenting, I wish I knew the answer for your question at the right time :) 

P.S.: After reading the post, you, the reader, may ask me, am I not happy on being a parent? Do I not live my child? My answer would be, I do. I am the most happiest person (rather happiest mommy) in the world to have got an angel as my daughter. I love her more than my life. That is what scares me as a mom. You would understand this if you are a parent, especially a mom. :)