Right or Wrong!!

After a long long time I again sit to write another blog.

This time on another thought

Right or Wrong.

Either or both are answers the the question!!

Question is, There are situations where communicating is difficult, so we dont communicate!! Is it Right or wrong!!

Professionally, I am happiest when people communicate with each other (phone / email) as I am a telecom guy :-)

SITUATION 1:

Love Angle.

A friend of mine @ had been loving a girl for over 10 years (its an old story). @ loving # for 10 years has been a hidden love. # takes @ as her best friend and discusses with him on all her crushes on various proposals she receives from other guys!!

@ keeps his love to his heart (doesnt communicate it to #) for a fear of losing a good friend.

Agreed!!

But I guess even if # doesnt love @, am sure she wud not feel right the day she comes to know that @ had always thought of her as his soul mate!! Atleast she would like him to be communicative to her. Isnt that part of the friendship?

I guess so!!

So @ after a lot of push proposes to #. As expected (since his luck is same as mine :-)), # rejects and a 10 year old friendship comes to an end!!

I dont know now if that push was right or wrong!!

But atleast, now @ has saved his life from the word "KAASH" (Hindi).

Am sure 20 years from now when @ is pissed off from his then wife ;-), wud never think, "Kaash, maine # ko propose kiya hota"

SITUATION 2:

Another friend, @, as per him loves #. @ says he has family commitments and as he cant communicate to his family about #, he plans to marry a girl of his family's choice and then do something to get # back into his life.

Since I am a friend of @, I find it good for #. But I still feel if this communication happens at the right time, it would be good!!

Delaying a communication is not solving it, it is just delaying a problem (or even bigger) for a later stage.

Lets see how things move with @.

All the best to him!!

SITUATION 3:

Another friend @ is in his 8th Semester (of girl search) of Matrimony!!

So @ called me saying that he is closing in on 1 girl finally .............. @ is so happy about it ........... he finds the girl, #, intelligent, interesting, practical and beautiful i.e. all that he dreamed off!!!

As per @, even # is ok with him.

@ and # talk a lot.

Then suddenly one day, # communications stop!! Thats fine!!

@ is all confused on what to do. He tried his best of sending a communication to get her response. All other official processes are on and parents have spoken!!

No commitments have been done by anyone, anywhere!!

#, in her talks always assured that she will communicate whatever, good or bad, right or wrong, to @ as he has opened his life to her completely and so has #.

But no communication again in this case definitely kills @!!

Probably a timely "No" (if thats the case) could help him move on!!

Saves him, his family for basing their dreams on #!!

Again, nothing right / wrong .............. there could be issues (not related to this decision) at # end!! but no communication confuses all!!

So, I think, communication is important.

Sometimes delaying definitely helps (atleast in communicating problematic stuff)

But if we do a %age check, I believe, communicating in advance helps a bigger problem at a later stage!!

Or rather you just prepone a disaster for you!! But atleast you save yourself from living with fear of that danger till the time you actually face it!!

Being from sales, I play with communication and its timings only :-)

So communication, mode of communication, timing of communication, all are equally important!! But at the same time, quicker communication helps either parties understand the situation better, mutually!!

What do you say?

Btw .............. am just back from Diwali Holidays @ Hardwar!!

It was awesome ............ some 15 school friends met this time .............. probably for last bachelor diwali for most of us!!

So many photos, talks, discussions, gossips and FUN, FUN n FUN!!

Omlette of Life :-)

Mixed Emotions running with me!!

The complete body has never been so busy.

Is work making me complaint? Actually, I am not complaining but last few months have been just too hectic. And I am loving this moment!!

Work, searched work, Personal - professional pressures and more.

Life giving a perfect mix like a masala Omlette. Eggs to get the feeling of non-veg and veggies to get the feeling of veg diet as well :-)

Let me put some thoughts about majority of "transactional" stuff!!

My college, DCE ranks amongst the premier Engineering Institutes in India. The Institute has been their since 1952. With that history, the college has produced over 25K engineers.
When we were in college, we used to talk a lot about a college with such a great history has absolutely no help coming in from Alumni in any form.
It has been 6 years since then and it took me that much time to realise that I am doing nothing different.
During my last few years, I have been tried various methods to collate our college passouts in local formats in various cities that I have stationed myself. But recently, after being part of almost all available free forums, I moved back to Delhi (saddi Dilli) and made a point that I visit the campus again and remind myself of my 4 years, 4 beautiful years.
I also attended my first ever Alumni Association Annual Meet after becoming Alumnus.After getting registered to the Alumni Association I got in touch with new set of Alumni ........... super juniors and super seniors.
We decided to attempt together increase the Alumni Membership ........ my understanding, I dont want any other Ritwik with my college today or tomorrow think the same about Alumni Association as I did in the college.
I love my college and a lot of people carry the same feelings for the college.
So with the same enthu, we started our attempts. Mailing to as many as we can get in touch with.
Thankfully, we got response ............ happiness lasted only till seeing response to my mail and died after reading it!!
College mates asked:
What is in it for me?
Why should I pay (nominal fee)?
What do I get in return?

I had never thought that what should have been a first thing people should have done, probably DCE belonged more to me than to them. Convincing Alumnus to join Alumni Association (and people ask why?)

My best college buddies when asked to join the association, they ask "why?" ........... I said, "Probably, you are from the same college"

As few more enthu people said, if the Association fee was charged with admission fee, this issue would not have come.

But it is not about money at all. It is about passion / love / affection people have left for their college.

Is there a more basic reason to join an Alumni Association than that you are an Alumnus of the college.

All of us know that what we are has lots of efforts from our side and the catalysts in our lives (parents, love of life, school, teachers, college etc etc).
But somehow we still say that college did not give me anything. And they say that from the seats that have the contribution of the college's reputation / campus placements / learnings from those first 4 years out of home.

Anyways from the topic of love and affection, let me move to actual love!!

A friend (MB) of mine loves a girl for last 10 years. Girl, as obvious, has never thought of MB in any form (not even as a friend). Otherwise, MB would not have only thought of her for last 10 years ;-)

Recently, MB got in touch with the girl again. Started chatting with her .......... tried chatting from pin to plane .......... but the girl comes with standard response "hmmm" ........ so effectively MB does not get any opportunity to meet her / know her.

MB is equally bad looking as I am :-)

So a reason obvious for the girl not interested. MB says, he has never loved a girl. She is the one and only.

So MB with all his admiration over coming his feelings went ahead and proposed the girl. As expected, she rejected!!

Since MB is a fighter like me :-) ........... he moved his selfish way .......... sent mails to the girl to give him a chance and his feelings for her to result in marriage.

But the girl only got irritated ........... yes, his approach has been selfish!!

MB is a non-romantic ......... practical guy ......... he ensured that families dont get involved from either side!!

But probably he missed 1 very important thing. Is his rejection ....... as obvious as hi thinks? There could be reasons beyond looks!! Something from girl's side or issues / expectations from her side (not pertaining to MB at all).

She might have decided that she would only go as per her family's choice ......... nothing wrong about it and I personally respect that!! But how would MB guess that?

Should he be given an opportunity to express his honest feelings / plan about future together and she could help him understand her reasons / compulsions / other things .............. I don't know ............ but I don't think girls give that chance!!

Lets see how MB's love life ends ........... MB, Man no need to get disheartened .......... only thing I can say is don't lose heart and the right path of things!!

There are always things beyond control!!

All the best MB ......... :-)

HAHAHA!!

Getting off from my normal (err...... abnormal) track of lectury (new word I learnt from someone special :-)) blogs ............ something on the lighter side!!

Few incidents which bring in some good laughs always!!
- Earth hour 2009: I am all charged up sitting with my mom that we as responsible people will save energy for our future generations as a civilized and nice human beings n do something good for the Earth. So 8 PM IST I am giving all gyan to my bro in Japan n sis in Lucknow that they should also switch off all lights from 8:30 PM-9:30 PM IST. So as the clock is about hit 8:30 PM, I am getting excited to my bit of contribution to Earth Hour ............. and yeah ............. oops the power cut happens ............ Noida is gutted into darkness ............ no its not Noida Electricity Deptt giving their contribution to Earth Hour, but just a regular practice!! So my plan of contribution goes for a toss!! I am smiling, laughing ............ about what?? ............ about Noida Electricity board conveniently killing my dreams of being a responsible citizen!! :-)

- Year '03 ................. I am in my first job and on lunch with my college mate and then colleague VG ........... we are in a Chinese low grade restaurant (come on ......... we are sweet guys on our first jobs with little money) ........... so the set-up is like some 5 (4 seaters) tables, 1 waiter, 1 more customer and a small window behind which there are some chinkis making the food as per the order. So out of blue me n VG strike a cool idea of making that boring place get some good life. So both me and VG sit on a single side of the table facing that other customer. Then we start enacting as if we are not actually 2 but 4 people sitting and in front of me-VG sitting are 2 more friends whom we thought had died but then suddenly saw them in that restaurant. So we start talking to them (back from death-friends). We crack jokes in air, we give taalis in air, we pull the cigarettes out from their mouth - throw it down - extinguish it etc etc ............ the other customer and the waiter almost watered their pants ;-) ............. I hv never seen a bill coming soooooooo fast to the table :-)

- Year '04 ........... me n VG again on a rocking show ............ driving on the bike .............. me driving and VG is the pillion ............. a car is driving on our right side with the aunty watching us in weird manner ............ both of us strike with a cool idea again ............. he starts talking to a non-existent friend over his phone while I also take my phone out and start talking to another non-existent number ............. aunty (with her windows down) is now getting angry as 2 young guys on bike are talking on mobile while driving ............. so then VG takes both the phones with 1 on each ear ........... then he looks at aunty and screams over both the phones "abe tum dono ek doosre se baat karoge?" and suddenly puts both the phones over each other criss-cross :-D .......... now aunty nows that the guys are weird ............. and we enjoyed those looks!!

as we senti-mental friends sometimes say .............. wo choti choti khushiyan jinse hum jeete hein!! above are few of them .................... hope I would put more words to this blog in times to come!!

Shaadi times

I know, I know, this is a topic that all of "forward looking generation" i.e. ours is most bored to even discuss about .............. and reading about it .............. no way!!

But fact of the matter is that all of us have somewhere, sometime discussed about it (in parts) with our closest buddies in last 9 years or so!!

So all of us know that most of our friends are out in the marriage market searching or being searched!!

But then few portions of discussions that I had with my friends of both genders about marriage and some good fundas and hilarious incidents!!

1. A close friend of mine has been searching for a bride for sometime with limited success. Reasons could be anything. Thats not what I want to tell you.
Initially, we noticed that he was very specific in terms & conditions and eligibility criteria for a bride and with time, the number of pages of his documents kept coming down!!
So we found this whole incident quiet analogous to our engineering.
Engineering College, most important year is last year!! Why?? just coz that is when you look forward for campus placements and some company finally paying for your limited knowledge and their mistake of recruiting you ;-)
So what we call as 8 semester Engineering life, 7th and 8th semesters are most important!!
In 7th Semester, all of us are like so choosy ........... "lets avoid this company, our branch is just one of the people allowed to sit.", "Not this company yaar ........ my cousin says that company is not doing good.", "not a good name of company yaar .......... what will I tell my friends, I am employed at this company?? No one will even recognise!!."
Then comes the 8th semester and we are still jobless ................ then we are like,"Any company would do man ............... need to have a job!!"
So with that description, I call my friend's marriage search entering 8th Semester from 7th Semester (i.e. now, Koi bhi chalegi .......... haan to kare!!)
Now, we have straight questions when we discuss amongst close buddies who are searching .......... which semester are you in?? 7th / 8th?? ;-)

2. A very good friend of mine went with us for a drive few years back. While chatting with her, she came with a question. She asked me, "Ritwik, which one do you think is better, love marriage or arranged marriage?"
I said "arranged". It may not be a personal choice, but an opinion I had looking at the objective of her question. She was definitely in a double mind on one of her recent love related interactions with some other guy so she just wanted a second opinion and hence the question to me.
I told her that as per me today, there is no big difference between love and arranged marriage. Most of the families are open enough on this.
I told her that as per now, difference between love and arranged marriage is only the source of prospective partner. i.e. just that in case of love marriage u introduce the guy to ur family and in case of love marriage u get introduced to a guy through your family.
In both cases you get time to accept or reject a guy. In case of love marriage, before introducing him to ur family, in case of arranged marriage, after the guy's introduction to your family. And most of the families are ok rejecting a proposal after sometime and everyone understands also.
Exceptions are always there though!!

3. Then a very mathematical discussion with another friend:
Crush + Success = Relationship :-)
Love - Success = Crush
So today whatever i look at my school time loves (success / no success is the key) they are called as Crush but yes at that time, if someone had asked me, they all very true love!!

Some Shaadi related fundas that I have come across or discussed!!

Though I believe in this section, comments from friends are more interesting that I look forward to :-D

Happy marriage!!

GAP Study!!

Since now I am part of Software Industry, the title is obvious :-)

Well the thought is very Indian and very Indian upbringing stuff!!

Most of us did our schooling at our hometowns ......... under the shelter of our parents and then moved out (from the base location) to different cities, for higher studies or search or timepass :-)

So like most of us, I also moved from Haridwar to Delhi to pursue my higher studies.
And again, like most of us, I was in Hostel!! Few of us also stay outside hostel (for fear of ragging) in private flats/apartments!!
Well, the point is that we are outside, without the protective cover / Discipline bag of our parents .

So, during the hostel life, we gained a lot of independence, decision making (as in screwing situations :-)), self appraisal, self life style, not to mention the degree (which only we know, how we earned ;-))

Next level .......... all of us either moved to next level of education / moved into the good n bad corporate world.

Cutting the whole story, all of us sometime somewhere landed into Corporate World!!

Now comes the time when we visit our homes to meet our parents/nears n dears once in a while during our busy job schedules!!

Intensity might differ but all of us know it in our hearts that we face some issues in staying there for more amount of time. Issues coz we, as per us, are mature people with own life and own way of living. So we dont like questions, timelines, rules, religion stuff, tradition!! We are cosmopolitan!!

I have been, for some time analysing why this happens and for my analysis I compare my current status with another friend of mine.

Firstly my status: I moved from Delhi to HYD (worked for 3 years) to BLR (worked for 2 years) and now in Noida. Parents stay with me now.
My Friend's status: Delhi to BLR (still working there). He sometimes comes and stays with parents in Delhi.

I feel some discomfort but my friend has terrible time!!

Are parents too demanding?? Are they too interrogating types?? Not really.

The reason that I found, which I call as the "GAP Study", is the GAP between what we are and what our parents know who we are!!
e.g. we during school were good boys/gals .......... parents always proud of us being the perfect child any parent could have in their lives!! we during period of independence become so independent that we indulge into habits which we know our parents may/may not appreciate. e.g. vegetarians start eating chicken, we start drinking, smoking, indulging into other stuff which we were told during school time, NOT TO DO!! So we being the Sindbad's of our lives explore all the NOT IN THE LIST islands!!

I am not saying what is right or wrong, I am just putting my thoughts on why do we have that discomfort with our parents.

Coz today we are different from what our parents know about us. While staying with them now we feel the discomfort of getting away from our Free Bird life. Not tthat they bind us, but think from their perspective, how many of us do share our professional or personal problems with our parents to some extent? lesser the extent, more is the discomfort since parents are not left with any other way but to ask on why, what, when, who, where!!

Since few of me and some my friends have shared may be 80% of actual lives with our parents, my comfort level staying with them is atleast 80%.

What is parents fault if they dont know about their children? Nothing. We never told them.
We have changed so much that we know that the GAP is huge and it would take tones and tones of time and effort in explaning them what we are today and why (most of us dont even remember the reasons for our changes).

I probably have been taking risks and exploring a bit on this in my case!!
e.g. I get late from a friend's party after office and reach home pretty late!! Contrary to my expectations, my mom did not call me even once asking on when would I come and where am I just because I told her in the morning that I would be at friend's party and would come late. My mom is aware that in BLR, during party at friend's place or a travel, i have driven for whole night, stayed at friend's place or came late so she knew that if there is any issue, I would call. But at the sametime, even if she had called while I was late, it would have been cause of her concern on my safety and not to interrogate!!

So as our life styles have changed as the need of today is different. Our way of living has changed since we need to be like that to have a work-life balance ........... but in this whole balancing act, we probably have forgotten about our parents and families ........... not "Forgetting" in literal terms but in terms of bring them abreast on our changes, developments, successes, failures etc etc.

So this gap ensures that we remain in discomfort and till the time we dont minimise it, it will always continue and grow bigger!!
We when normally talking on a serious note to our friends say that, "parents wont understand". But have we ever tried to make them understand!!
We can scream at our boss's in the job of giving us some high funda without explaning how it happens, then why do we expect our parents to understand our statement after our evolution of 5-6 years?

I now believe in this:
Less the gap, more the comfort
More the information, less the gap
What is right, what is wrong is your own thought. Its with you!!
What you want to tell, what you dont, its again your wish!!
Parents could understand us when we were kids. They can definitely understand us today too. Just that we need to be as expressive as we were when we were kids!!
None of the statements are 100% true. This is my thought, you may have a different opinion, a different feeling. What I wrote is my funda!! May or maynot be applicable generally.

Outlook!!

Unusual Subject and am sure not many people write on this.

The Blog is about Outlook of guys for girls ............. and trust me ........... it is all vegetarian (this is not part of my outlook ;-))


There are few grades /terminologies that guys generally follow about girls:
Girls can be classified into 3 categories by guys:
GM: Girl Friend Material
MM: Marriage Material
IM: Im-Material

Dont feel bad as terminologies may differ but girls also grade boys like that!! :-D

Also, girls can move from 1 category to other.

So I have had a history of crushes, losses, failures and few successes!! please dont take them in their literal meanings but for that point of time, all the history could be graded in those terms!!

But then 1 question that keeps me wondering, is love what binds 2 people?
In case of a couple, then I learnt what bind harder is not love!!

I recently got a new friend who is out-an-out a casinova!! and he is committed .......... and though guys are probably not as committed as girls are, this guy as per my expectation has all the reasons to loose interest in his current partner (girl friend as of now)!! But then I realised that what binds them is respect.
Girl loves the guy but guy respects the girl. So that respect would never let any girl for that matter take her place in his life!!

But again Outlook may say Love but I say, its the respect for the other person that binds them!!

Not a verdict, not a decision, not an ideology, just a thought put into a blog!!

Mumbai was rocked!!

I am sure there are so many blogs about Mumbai attacks but what I am writing here is something slightly different.

All of us are aware on what happened in Mumbai few days back.

I was travelling outside India for few Business meetings and unfortunately, my all meetings with my customers started with the topic of "MUMBAI". Unfortunate not because of I was ashamed of what is happening in India but because my mind was not letting me talk happily to the customers and still I was there doing business meetings.

About 5 months back whenever India used to have terrorist attacks, I used to feel bad about the attack as any Indian and used to think for a moment about those who lost there lives and then used to immediately call my known people in that area / city and check about their whereabouts!!
After all this, for me it was just a news and probably consumed about 20 minutes of time on that day only.

But then, something happened that changed my process of how I take news like these.

One day I was driving back from office and as usual was listening to the FM radio.
The hostess that day was talking to callers. The show was getting hosted 5 days after the recent Delhi bomb blasts in Connaught Place.

Everything on the FM calling was going fine till the time a girl called the FM station.
She started her talks with hostess with crying. Then she narrated her story over the radio which was about her acquaintance with the Delhi blasts.
The girl was about to get married and her only friend (girl) was also supposed to get married same date. Both the couples went for shopping in CP on the D-Day and then for sometime, she went with her friend's fiance to a different shop and then booooooooooooom!! the bombs went off and her fiance n her friend died!!
With this narration of her side, the girl was cryin, cryin n cryin!!

I then realised that what was just a news for me, was a complete change of life for someone.
And then I realised that I need to give much much more value to it than just a news and 10 minutes. That is the least that I can do.

Dont think that I am talking some emotional funda!! when you can appreciate Peter Parker realising that "someone else's problem" can be "his problem" when the theif he had left after the fight with bonesaw, shoots his uncle Ben, then why not us!! though we have no intentions to climb on the walls nor have I ever been to a DNA lab of spiders!!

but the point is that do all of us give the due concern to events like this? I dont think so!! I realised that after hearing the story of the girl over radio that day.

I was actually so concerned about what was happening in Mumbai that I got the guts of watching India TV kinds of news channel too outside India.
Though how irrseponsible, therereporting was something that I would talk about later but the point is that I really felt bad about what was happeneing in my country and to our people.
It affected me and so it should to all of us. Thats the least we can do being an Indian.

Then in 1 of my meetings, a customer asked me about Mumbai. The lady had told me earlier that she plans to goto India sometime.
During the meeting I asked her if she is planning to goto India anytime?? She said, "NO".
I felt bad .............. terrorist strikes had ensured that people think twice before coming to our country. I just asked her one thing, "Have you stopped going to US after 9/11?"

She dint say a word after that!!

End of the day, I took Mumbai Terror very seriously. It is happening in the country where I live. That fact makes it great enough to be worried about!!