Ek zamana tha, bohot aayiash the hum.
Kuchh nahi tha magar khaas the hum.
Apne hi ilaqe ke, chhote mote se
Fakiron se sahi par sartaaj the hum.
Umr badti gayi aur tajurbe bhi,
Jab sab haasil hua toh naaraz the hum.
Shikan mathe par jo nayi khurafaaton ki thi,
Ab silvatein pareshaaniyon ki ban gayi.
Jab unchayion se dekhne lage saare Jahan ko,
Toh Dil se tanha aur nasaaz the hum.
Growing inside of your comfort zone
Strange?...
People say; “just outside of your comfort zone is where tremendous opportunities and growth lie” and I say “NO!” Growth actually lies deep within you and a lot of it can come from your comfort zone. Sounds nice for the lazy ones right? Well not really, because to actually make that effort to explore the growth opportunities that lie within one’s comfort zone requires much more scrutiny, learning and understanding of every aspect of life as well as individual abilities.
If I were to ask you what are your hobbies, I surely would get several stereotype replies like reading, writing, photography, cooking, etc. and several of them would have nothing to do with your day-to-day lives…for that matter, they may not even form any significant part of your weekend. Hmmm, but then what do you really do simply liking them, if in reality you did nothing about it?
My mom always told me (and she still does), that ‘if you like something, then learn it and do something about it. Simply saying that you like a particular thing makes no real sense.” So as a kid, she got me into a habit of sitting down and learning all that I would say, I really liked. In my growing years, I did not quite realise the difference it was making in my life until I started comparing myself to several others as a grown up. Well honestly, one fine day you suddenly do not start comparing yourself with others. It’s kind of a process that gradually happens in your life. So in one such instance, when interacting with one of the random acquaintances, I got into a dialogue on ‘likes and dislikes’ and ‘hobbies’. The gentleman said he likes to grow flowering plants. So I was excited and said, “me too” and gave him a list of plants that I liked and the seasonal plants that I like growing and the reason behind their flowering seasons and so on. I also showed him pictures of my terrace garden and as expected he was happy and excited too. A while later he said he loves good food and we ended up talking about recipes and different taste patterns found across countries and so on. During which I told him about my food blog and interests in food photography and experimental recipes. He was mighty impressed with me and said ‘wow’. Later in the conversation we spoke about a lot of stuff right from my job as an equity analyst to my being a professional photographer to being a blogger, a trekker, a writer, a speaker, a car enthusiast, and so on. And the gentleman was speechless…not that I intended that to happen, nor that I’m trying to boost about it. What he asked me was, “how was it that I knew so many things and could do them well? What provoked me into doing so much?” My answer was that my mom told me to learn all that I liked and I ended up liking so many things in this beautiful world that my learning was and has never been enough. The process is still on.
What grew with all this was nothing but a vast gamut of opportunities. When I earned a bit less as an analyst, I also earned from photography. As I grew in life as well as knowledge to some extent, I wrote media articles, cover stories for magazines, blogs, and so on. With my developing interest and some efficient management of time, I could do a lot more and even earned from it…earned not just money but a lot of contacts, relationships, further knowledge and so on. But did I really go out of my way to do any of these? Did I ever stop being comfortable about it? The answer was ‘NO!’
I always continued doing exactly what I liked. I simply, pursued my hobbies a little better than several others and gained out of it. So, there I was doing so much more and meeting so many fantastic people like you, without actually having to compromise my comfort zone.
What I want to tell you is, that do not try to ruin your comfort for achieving anything. It only adds up to stress that ultimately keeps you away from enjoying your achievements to the fullest. Instead, do more about what you like already and flourish in it. Grow more in what makes you happy because that immense happiness inside of you will be damn contagious and will spread farther than what you may have been able to imagine. You will not just achieve a lot in life but also feel really relaxed, happy and cheerful about it and not be burdened by any kind of discomfort.
Growth is not about stepping out of your comfort zone. It’s about making the best out of your own interests and abilities while being absolutely comfortable and happy about it.
Believe me, today is just another day when a small section of society loses their life to something as random as a stamped on a railway bridge. Yes, it is that petty when we sit back and think but then what it cost was the life of ~22 people and over 30 others severely injured. As the news channel tell the tale of this mishap each one of us sitting in our air conditioned offices or homes, start to wonder how such a thing happened, who started running like that, what caused the chaos, why didn’t people keep calm, and so on. But, behind our backs those people standing in a stuffed environment for about 30 minutes lose patience and start pushing each other out of frustration and/or fear; and there it goes…one negative feeling to other and then to mass destruction that can never, on this planet Earth, be undone!
As always we start off with what’s the simplest thing to do…blame others and do nothing at all about improving ourselves. We will sit and blame those people who were ‘MAD’ to go pushing each other and end up losing their lives; we will blame those railway authorities ‘who can’t even manage a crowd in an over populated city like ours’; we will go blaming right to the top, including the re-development authorities to the municipal corporation to the railway minister also…it never really ends. But then again, tomorrow will be a new day and we will find all people using the same old infrastructure, exactly the same way they did today – pushing, pulling, running, etc; and we will be in our safe domains taking up another topic online on social-media and practically doing nothing about it…absolutely nothing. The lives lost will be forgotten and this event – this disastrous event – will be nothing more than a page in some records that would not be referred to again.
When I read the news on my mobile news app, I was shocked as to – how can this happen so badly; and then I honestly, moved on to my work, not realising how bad or worse or worst it was. That’s what we always do, on a daily basis. We react to absolutely any news for a few seconds and then move on. Being in an equity research profession, the only thing I react to with some serious feelings and dedicated time, is that of corporate rejigs, financial results, takeovers, mergers, and so on. Just then a friend sent me a few videos and pictures of this so called ‘stamped’ that caused so many unforeseen and cruel deaths. I…I fell speechless, not only because it was a big news, but also because it stirred me up deep within my heart and soul. You certainly don’t want to watch some 15-20 people piled up on one another of which most are dead with blood oozing out of almost everywhere. And to top it all, the one thing I really wonder and feel scared about is that people are more engrossed in taking pictures and videos rather than helping those trapped ones out of the mess.
I wish all of us could do something in life to change even 1% of this. May be we must become calmer in life to take rational decisions even in times of crisis. May be we need to become a bit more considerate about one another and those who are in dire need of help. May be we just need to stop blaming each other and start following rules with some discipline. Let us understand that some delay in reaching a location is far far better than causing such lethal aftermath. We need to deal with accidents like collapsing towers and bridges, with some patient understanding that may help cause least loss. We can try and not reach a level of wear-and-tear that such a thing happens at all.
May be we actually need to be more ‘humane’ than what ‘humans’ are today. Life is not really worth 5 paise. It is an invaluable asset and one owes a lot to several others around them in form of relationships, responsibilities, love, affection, sacrifices and devotion.
I saw a video long back in which several people were asked. “What is the most difficult job in the whole world?” While the answers ranged from doctors to teachers to engineers to astronauts, the real answer was that of a farmer. Yes! Farmer’ The crux of the matter was that if there was no food producing community doing their job so diligently, there would be no civilised life at all.
Similarly, if I were to ask you, “what is the gravest problem in the world?” The answer could again have a vast range right from troubled relationships to a bad job environment to lack of opportunity to illiteracy to several hazardous diseases and so the list would go on. But if I had to tell you that all of these can be resolved to a great extent by actually overcoming one simple tiny looking problem which is – “Self Pity”.
Across the globe, a majority of people have been deeply indulging in ‘self pity’ day-in and day-out without even realising the serious and long lasting impact it causes on their minds, resulting further into an added list of new troubles. Now if I had to explain to you how this so called ‘self pity’ works and how it slowly spreads into one’s mind and then into the surrounding and then the community, you would be surprised at its mass destruction. Here I take this random example of a ‘bad work environment’.
The chairman of a company, upset with a new problem at work, bashes up his manager and the manager in turn ruins the day for his assistant. This Mr. Assistant then catches up with friends over a drink and gets drunk telling them his sad story at work. He then goes home and messes up with his wife and kids and they in turn hate him for being this way. Now if you notice, all of this wasn’t really needed. All that was required to be done was solving of the little problems at work with some calmness and level-headed thinking. And this could have been done by absolutely anyone who chose to break this chain of downward spiral of self pity. Wouldn’t’ things be totally different if instead of asking, ”why me?” they had said “let me”.
If we can decide and get rid of the constant ‘self pity’ towards only one problem of our lives each day – no matter how tiny it may be; and start making positive changes to improve the situation therein, you will actually have solved 7 problems of yours over a weeks time. Incidentally, you will have solved an average of 25 problems in a month (considering you may ponder on the same problem for more than a day, at times) and this would result in solving about 300 problems in a year. Now, that’s a huge number. And if I have to really sit back and calculate or rather list down the number of problems that one has in his/her life, the count is certainly much lesser.
So all it would take is just a few months of a diligent effort to stop practicing ‘self pity’ and start solving a particular problem with the utmost positive attitude. This would not only make you a happier human being but also create a surrounding effect towards making a happy home, a happy locality, a happy corporation and so on. Problems aren't really as big as they are made to appear, if and only if one chooses to think rationally towards solving them rather than indulging in self pity.
While this has lately become a very touchy topic, I couldn’t help talking about one of the biggest concerns I have. As a BFSI analyst, I have been answering ‘n’ number of queries coming from all sorts of people – fellow analysts, colleagues, family, friends, shopkeepers, journalists, and so on. While I am not really a “know it all” kinda person (no one really is, for that matter), in such times I am certainly expected to be one. I have so far tried being able to provide satisfying answers.
As the day dawned with everyone in the financial markets and other businesses as well betting big time on who would be the next US President, no one had really thought that one of the world’s biggest decisions would end up being a non-event by the end of the day, at least in India. And there it was; the game changing address of the Honourable Indian Prime Minister at 2000 hours, when he declared demonetisation of the Rs500 and Rs1,000 currency notes with effect from ‘0000 hours’ that night. A sudden panic struck each and every citizen – the rich & the poor; salaried & self-employed; students & teachers; the young & the old…all equally in every city, town and village. All sorts of questions sprang up – who, when, why, where, what and how. Several people got troubled and several sailed through somehow, very few complained and a majority were convinced and happy about the PM’s brave decision (including me).
After a few days, by the end of November 2016, the official data on total amount of money deposited in the banks, money put as charity in temples and hospitals and the cash deposits in the accounts opened under the ‘Jan Dhan Yojna (JDY)’ have actually left me with a serious worry. Is India also becoming a ‘money laundering hub’?
While a lot of people may differ from my opinions and condemn it to the core, I wish to remind myself that I live in the “Sovereign Socialist Democratic Secular Republic of India” and have an equal right to put forward what I feel, especially if it is in the best interest of out dear Nation.
Ever thought why did the PM launch the JDY at all? Well there are reportedly a lot of poor people in the rural and urban regions, who have so little money that they couldn’t open a normal bank account as they were unable to maintain any minimum balance therein. They live their lives on an ‘earn and eat’ model. But post the demonetisation ~Rs27,000 crore have been deposited into these JDY accounts, in less than a month’s time. So, where did all this money come from? Did the poor people actually keep so much cash at home to deal with their basic needs? The answer would probably be ‘No’. Similarly, why is it that the temples and hospitals which have always been getting donations and funding from few people (not that the money received earlier was any less), have started receiving so much cash that it has become difficult for them to handle the same? Is this not unusual? What made these people so humble, concerned about the unwell population and so devotional towards temple trusts…all of a sudden? Well the answer to this is probably – these options are any day better than throwing away your black money somewhere in to the sea. Not that it is any crazy example, some people actually did that. Weird? Yes it is. But, true as well.
The honourable PM has been talking to people in various cities and towns, addressing mass meetings, explaining the importance of this decision. At the same time, there are other political parties – not naming any in particular as there are many – who have been trying to fight against the discomfort caused by this transition. But apart from the basic discomfort of getting the currency exchanged and the temporary issues pertaining to the daily basic necessities such as laundry, grocery, milk, etc; nothing really seems to be largely affected by this decision. If you ask me, I have paid my bills online, shopped for medicines using old currency, paid the petrol bills by card, and so on. Even the small vendor from whom I purchase milk and grocery uses a smart phone and downloaded PayTM within days of the decision and until then gave credit to the regular customers. Nothing really halted in my life…anything at all. And to be honest, nothing halted in the lives of the household helpers that we deal with either, they could sail through with minimal discomfort (well, some aberrations from the normal day-to-day life were bound to be there after such a big leap).
So who were the people who really faced trouble then?
1) Those having loads of black money stacked at home (some closely known to me too), as they were left clueless as to how not to get caught and how to wade off as much trouble as possible and to park more money in a way that it is out of the view of the governmental hawks and can be recovered at any time in future; 2) Some senior citizens who were living alone and didn’t know how to go about the whole process and needed help; and finally 3) The so called ‘Elite Politicians’ who had kept aside huge sums of money to pay for their election campaign expenses. (I know some people who may feel like bombing me after reading this blog. However, they won’t coz they love me too much. I’m safe that way. Hehehe)
While the 2nd category also somehow sailed through with the help of friends, relatives, neighbours and household helpers, the biggest problems were faced by the 1st and the 3rdcategories (rather they re still facing trouble, which is why there are several oppositions to the decision, debates and arguments). I don’t believe in the logic that one set of people are good and the other corrupt. Nor do I believe in any political party for that matter. If I were to talk about politics, I would have picked 10 great leaders across all parties. Sadly they work for different leaders. Had they been together and united, India would have changed, the way the world looks at this country, ages back. Not getting into those details here, this event has affected one and all.
With a gamut of actions and news floating on a daily basis, the silly side of people also has awakened, though sarcastically – saying the PM instead of removing poverty removed the riches. Well if I have to ask you, point blank. Who is poor? Now do you feel like shouting at me and say, ‘are you mad?’ or ‘just shut up if you don’t know a thing?’ Well, I do. So answer me, ‘who is poor?’ Are the people living on the foot-path poor? But then they do carry cash amounting to more than a few thousands (as what I have witnessed myself, not relying on any story). Are the traditional farmers poor? But they have seasonal short falls of funds and seasonal bouts of riches too. Are those people poor, to whom the great politicians keep promising “roti, kapda aur makaan’ for a trade against the votes that these people would cast in their favour? Believe me; this list can go on…
If you really ask me, I believe (and just to remind you all, this blog contains my personal views only…unbiased and crude) that the real poor are those villages who have schools but no teachers to teach, those so called ‘Naxalites’ who have the cash and a well occupied place to live; but not a single medical aid when they really need. Poor are those who think of sharing their wealth only when they are scared of all of it really going to the sea. Poor are NOT those who stay hungry but don’t complain, make an effort but lose, try to stand up but fall. And what we, the so called well-to-do people do, provide a charity lunch outside a temple and ask boldly, “kya abhi bhi koi bhookha hai?” Is that the only thing we can do in life? Can’t we ask ourselves some worthy questions and actually deal with the anomalies of this world? For how long will you believe that giving some amount to a charitable trust, taking a receipt in return for tax benefits and then sitting in a spa or enjoying derby would bring you peace? People have been fighting against the government’s actions and singing about other people’s troubles due to demonetisation to a level that doesn’t really do any good to the society or the world. Did we just try utilising the same resources for the smooth functioning of the same? The answer is NO. And my question is WHY?
Instead of asking “kya abhi bhi koi bhookha hai?” best is to turn hungry ourselves. Let us be hungry for growth, hungry for development – not just commercial but mental, emotional and spiritual. Let’s get hungry to really understand the people around us and help them sail through all their difficulties in life. We can’t provide solutions to each problem, but what best we can do is to stop creating them.
To beat my temporary phase of loneliness, I chose to travel a bit. Not too far off but in my own city #mumbai . And this time I didn't take my beloved car along, coz it would have taken me to places I knew or the ones I could find on Google maps. This time, I wanted to get lost somewhere and find myself back. It was meant to be a journey of self hunting, more than just overcoming that feeling of empty spaces. So I decided to take random local BEST buses and travel until the last stop, no matter how far, and then head back using a different route.
To my surprise, I saw the Mumbai that I hadn't witnessed in my life so far. While I've been living in this city by birth, it has appeared to be a strange location to me, at times. I even walked few distances and asked the locals for directions, though I knew my way most of the time. These conversations were meant to only strike a dialogue with them and know a bit about their locality. The hot sun didn't seem to bother me much coz the emotional turmoil was adequate to deal with anyway. What I found somewhere hidden deep within though, was an inherent feeling of loneliness in every one I happen to speak to. A chai wala was alone in Mumbai, his family in the village and was planning to go to meet them but couldn't. A florist who lightens up people's faces with those beautiful flowers each day, lives alone too. When I got into a conversation with my cabbie, I realised how these people, in an attempt to make more money, go to Dubai and come back for random issues; and what lies beneath the surface of a rash taxi driver is a neat disciplined driver with an international licence who came back coz his village folks tried to get his daughter married forcefully.
I just indulged into a conversation with a photographer who had an awesome collection of Kashmir pictures on instagram and I was dumb struck. While I chose not to discuss even a bit on the country's most disputed "Kashmir issue", I couldn't escape the story of his brother who was killed in an attempt to search for a terrorist. However, his brother and the family were found innocent and given a clean chit later, the loss was inevitable and deep...very deep.
Surprisingly, this sinking feeling of being alone and wanting someone who would be there with you in all thick and thin, was mutual among all...just about every damn person I met or happened to talk to. And despite these empty spaces in the mind and lives, they were all smiles and living up as best as they could. Is the world so empty? Aren't we really together? Does this loneliness go off with time or do we just get trained enough to deal with it, to a level where we ourselves do not realise how vast these empty spaces grow deep within our souls and end us thinking of life as a mess...a nuclear war that is fought each day...until perpetuity.
My questions remain unanswered and I return thoughtful. I need to head to the Himalayas again...don't find bliss anywhere else.
