Ek parinda tha aur parindon ke jaisa,

unhi ke jaisa par fir bhi unse juda....

par to the, par kabhi ud na saka....

Fir ek din achanak....hua ek chamatkar..

mano ek pal mein ulat gaya sansar...

par fadke uske...mann mein ek naya vishwas...

ek baar udne ki chah aur azadi ki aas,,

fadfadae usne par apne,, kooda hava mein ek baar...

bas fir kya tha,,uday hua suraj jaise aur dil mein 1 naya qaraar..

Udta raha asmaan mein,,,hava ka vo dusra naam..

Jo nahi socha tha sapne mien kabhi...

Karta tha haqeeqat mein vahi subah sham...

Par panchi ho ya suraj....doob jata hai...

Aakhir thak ke vaapis dharti par hi aata hai...

1 baar uda,,,,suraj ko chooma...

Saare aakash mein firta vo ghooma...

Par kal ka kisko hai pata...

Fir vahi suraj ugega ya nahi...

Jo chaha hai vo milega ya nahi...

Aaj ka to pata hai, kal suraj ugega bhi ya nahi....?

Ek parinda tha..aur parindon jaisa...

Aur paridon jaisa par fir bhi juda...

Flashback

My CFA is nearing. I had taken a leave yesterday to study. Today i had to go to ofiice. When i was leaving for office i received Prats sms saying that the GD and interviews for the junior batch are on in the office and someone from each department should be there to answer any queries that they might have.

I went to office and in some time went to the conference room where they were waiting for their turn.

As i walked nearer to the room, flashes of the time when i had gone for the interview came into my mind. It was strange, a year ago i was in the same position as them. So much has changed since then. My life has changed so much, it has reached where i would have never even imagined. Now i realize suddenly, how important this is to me. Sometimes we get so used to things that we start taking everything for granted. This is a dangerous time . Something which takes you back to reality and makes you realize the importance of things in life is very necessary.

As i think of myself in the same position as they are today, a little confused, not sure what lies in the future, i realize how lucky i was to get selected and how lucky i am to be here today at this beautiful place amongst these awesome people.

A rainbow of emotions! Thats what my mind is. Its been a year! How time flies, i feel as if it was just yesterday that i landed in Mumbai and came to the institute, all excited, a little nervous, stepping into a new phase of my life.

Its hard to believe that in another 1 year, it will be over. Its hard to imagine life out of this. I don’t know what i would do. I am a little scared. I don’t want it to end. It is like a dream. I sometimes feel that any moment someone will call out my name and i will wake up and realize, god! It was only a dream. I am sure these are the best days in my life and i am going to remember them for the rest of my life.

But with all this i also realize how far i have come. The energy with which we had come has converted into a calm. The intent of learning and achieving as much as i can had slowly started to recede. But now, i realize that once more. As i recall the frame of mind with which i had come here, the energy and the intent are back. What if i fail, what if i am not successfull, i must try, i will prove that it is possible to balance everything after all. I hope I do!

wts right, wts Wrong?

As i stand in the pantry of my plush office sipping coffee while taking a break from work, i stare out from the window. There is some construction going on adjacent to the building and so there are small huts built as a temporary residence for the labourers working there. I stare at these huts and think,,,When will these people reach where i am?? perhaps generations...perhaps not even then..

Then i see a small child of about 10 years playing amidst these huts and again the thought comes to mind,, will he be able to even dream of working in an office like this.The two worlds are so near yet so far. But then i realised, does he need to reach where i am ?? I looked at him closely and found that he was happy, playing with a self made kite, with no worries or tensions. Can i dream of something like this to ever happen to me or to my kids or to my future generations ever ?? Can i see such a childhood for my future generations where they dont have to worry about exceling at school or at sports or in other fields? The answer is a definite no ! So the same question echos, Does he need to reach where i am?? He may not be able to eat three good meals in a day but what is important is that he is happy! In his own little world, He doesnt have to think about learning math, reading newspapers keeping himself up to date on current events,,He is Carefree, he is enjoying! So why does he need to be in an office like i am?? Perhaps he doesnt.. How can i say that i am in a better position than he is?

Wts right? Wts wrong?

Lest, Right, Straight..

Where do I go?

Left, right, straight, where should i go??

A complex web of thoughts, confusing thoughts occupy the mind.

What should i do, where should i go..Theres too much to do in life and the Utopian world of balancing everything that i had thought of, seems to be fading away, seems more like a dream than ever before. But where do i stop?? How do i decide what is achievable and what is just out of my reach and what is a dream and what can be a reality..Is the world of balance, the world where everything happens simultaneously, where you can adjust so that you don't have to compromise on one thing for another, a reality or a distant dream...

And if its a dream, where should i compromise? how should i decide what is important and what is not. Spending precious seconds of time enjoying the moments of life right now seems important to me but leave me with a sense of incompleteness, a sense of regret and guilt. Guilt that i am not doing what i am supposed to, that this is not supposed to be like this, But who decides what i am supposed to do and what i am not?? it should be me..

How do i strike that perfect balance ?? How do i do things worth 48 hours in a day of 24 hours in which time flies past like a gush of wind..

How do i control my thoghts? How do i bring down my expectations of myself.. How do i make myself understand that i cant have everything in this world, that i cant achieve anything and everything that i think of, that this world after all is NOT a Utopian world , this is reality and reality doesn't work that way

How do prioritize things when each one seems of equal importance to me??

How do i sort my tangled thoughts, how do i soften this storm of thoughts, how do i find a direction

Where should i go?? left, right, straight..........

My Inner Self

There are days in ones life when everything seems to be going like a dream and then there are days when your innner expecations of urself come to the fore and say" Dude is this all ?? is this what u wanted in life? is this good enough? will you smile 50 years from now and say i have achieved all I wanted?? theres so much to do in life ,, you cant just lie low and relax even for a second.."

There is danger in both !!!

If everything seems like a dream,, chances are something is wrong and you are not doing what you actually want to do. In other words you may be content of what life is offering you. This is not a good sign. You goto have a fire in you to be successful as the big guys, to make it big, to stand out.. to achieve what you dreamt of.

But then what is the use of achieving that if the process of achieving that is not appealing..

Wat is the use of reaching the top if the journey of reaching the top is not good..

In other words why do you want to reach the top? because you find happiness in that. If you are content and happy with what you have,, is their any need to be at the top?

Then again your inner self which demands more out of u will keep coming out and telling you that you are made for more, you have to stand out,,YOU CANT JUST LIE LOW,, ..

This again though good in one way is dangerous in another, You have got to realize that it needs to end somewhere. You need to realize your capabilities your strengths and weaknesses in the true sense and make your inner self understand what you can achieve and what you cannot. That you need not be as good as others around you because you are better than them in other respects. That over burdening yourself will result in nothing, that you can achieve things upto a certain level.. that you cant be the best in everything,,that you need to relax and take time out and enjoy as well,, that the journey is equally important if not more important than the destination.

Sounds easy, but it is the most difficult thing in life to achieve and very few people actually understand this and even fewer are actually able to achieve this balance and those who do are amongst the few blessed.

I hope to achieve it someday !!!

SLUMDOG SWEEPS THE OSCARS AND THE WORLD

Okay so Slumdog millionaire has bagged 8 Oscars. It has officially swept the world of its feet. A.R Rehman has brought two Oscars and one for sound mixing makes it three for India.

I watched the movie a day before the Oscars on Tatasky(it was a cheap deal!). It is a nice movie, no doubt about that. The music given by Rehman is also good and overall the film does deserve some awards. For me, the children in the film were the real stars of the film. They have acted superbly in the film. Of course due credit should go to the director and other people including various technicians to have made it look the way it did.

But after watching the film, one of the things that i realised was that there could be several themes of the film. Some persons, after watching the film would say(and have said rather vocally) that it is a dirty depiction of poverty and slums of India. Well that's their idea of the film, cant stop them from thinking that. Another set of modern spiritual philosophisers would say that it is about the optimism, the never say die spirit of the poor in India. Some other people would say that it is an Indian love story where the hero loves the heroine from childhood, various obstacles come in their way. They separate from each other due to the circumstances only to meet again when they have grown up. Enter the villain. And in the end the hero fights and gets his heroine. Lovers reunited. A classic Hindi love story. But for me, the story shows the learning process of an individual, which in the movie is depicted by the life of Jamal. What was striking was the way in which the filmmaker has depicted the learning process of Jamaal. How small incidents in his life contribute to the learning process which helps him answer the questions to win the show 'who wants to be a millionaire'.

Well that settled, now the music and the film are certainly good but the fact is that Rehman has been given splendid music for our films for almost the past two decades. And if the music of slumdog deserves the award then most of his other work also does. It is only a matter of opportunity that he got to give the music for a Hollywood film which brought him under contention for the award.

Also as far as the film is concerned there have been numerous other Indian films which are even more entertaining than slumdog and contain some exceptional performances by our actors. But again the fact that it was directed by a Hollywood director and was a Hollywood film was the reason that it came under contention for the awards.

Anyway it is certainly a great moment for India because the talent of India has been recognised by the world. And also the film may be a Hollywood film but most things related with it are Indian including the actors and technicians.

So, JAI HO SLUMDOG AND JAI HO INDIA

OBAMANIA

Obamania has hit the world. The swearing in of Barack Obama has aroused hopes of a better future not just in America but around the world. In many ways Mr. Obama is the perfect face of the change that every American hopes of.

The reasons for the phenomenal success of Barack Obama are many. Firstly, the poor performance of the Bush administration preceding Mr Obama lead to a general feeling of discontent and want of change among the citizens of the US. It has been seen in the past in different democracies that a poor performance by one administration is often the reason for the electoral success of another government, a new government, a government that promises change. Same holds true in this case as well. The poor performance of the preceding bush administration contributed a great deal to the success of Barack Obama. The fact that Mr Obama represented the change better than anybody else could, further strengthened his case. The swearing in of Barack Obama as the president of the US , The first African American president of the United States of America, definitely would be a change incomparable to any other event. Add to that the quality to deliver exceptional public speeches that connect with the listeners, speeches with great content, speeches that arouse hope and speeches that promise change. The result, Mr Barack Obama, now President Obama has made history to become the first African American president of the United States of America.

What remains to be seen however is that , will the Obama administration be able to live up to the vast expectations of people from all around the world. There would be an immense pressure of expectations on him and he would have to work hard to live up to them. Also Mr Obama would have to make the people understand that it would take time to get out of the mess that they are currently in. People hoping that Mr. Obama would be able to pull of something magical to improve the prevailing conditions would also have to be made to understand that this will not be the case. All in all there are some tough times ahead for President Obama, and it remains to be seen whether he will be successful in dealing with them or not. The one thing that would make matters easier for him is the quality of being able to connect with people.