A simple little plea ....

My name is Kalpit & i am 10
i have a sweet sister, whom i call behen

We had one TV, and to control it a remote
she wanted serials & i, Sachin hit Chris Mc dermott

sometimes she fought with me
sometimes she fought for me

if and when i err
from mom would she save my ear

growing up she was my only frnd,
as time passed she became one of my frnd

now, when i finished my school
to me she wasnt so kool

i drifted away from her
she went busy with life of her

now in college, we know less about each other
sometimes i dont understand y dont i bother

Never thot i wud cry,
but the eyes just wudnt dry

it was difficult to believe, now she was married
it feels like yesterday, she along me carried

i dont see her everyday
i so wish life was like yesterday

when everyday i cud talk to her
may be just an odd banter

i guess those days will never be back
but then its never too late to try and get wat u lack

she made me a mama
feels much better then being in bahama

here i pray to God,
O Almighty my Lord

Give me Mumbai, give me my life
else its like cutting me with a knife

I want to see my nephew grow
if not allowed then i wud cry like a crow

Its not that i m not open to try
but that way my life wud be a little too dry

i ask for a small thing from U
i think U shud give me, what i m due

Love is Pain | Pain is Love

This was probably my best Christmas that I have ever had in my life. Cause for all my previous ones I just used to be at home and there was nothing special about Christmas, except for the santa cap sellers on the traffic signal. Rest all used to be the same. But this Christmas was different. It was very special. It gave me a realisation that pain and love are the two sides of the same coin.


When I was coming back from pune on Christmas this year, I was all excited about coming to Mumbai at the prospect of meeting mom, dad, didi, jiju, friends and special friend. That feeling of excitement was a manifestation of the love that I have for all of them. The trip was gud I met so many of my close friends, the bulldog had come down from US, usse milke bhi bahut accha laga tha. We had met in college.


Yeah I had been to college for the first time in around 7 months, had been there last for my ICE exam. The feeling was great. The atmosphere was just amazing. Nothing had changed in MY DJ. Except that now we were ‘alumni’ and not the ‘student’. I could actually see flashbacks being played in front of me ( bollywood ishtyle). It was amazing. All the memories that we cherish became fresh as yesterday. Dabba bhi mila tha college me. Its kinda cliché but it is warranted……. DJ rocks !!!!..... sorry guys cudnt resist the temptations.


According to me, Einstein was the greatest of all, not because of his “Theory of Relativity” though. He had said that” Good times go much faster than the bad times” and my word has he captured the whole meaning of Zindagi in just one statement or wat. What a statement sirjee.


Now after a good trip (incomplete one though) while I was coming back, there was a lot of pain in my heart. When my bus took of from the bus depot, my mom gave me a flying kiss and my eyes became wet and tears just started rolling down. I cudnt stop. I love her and dad so much. So that was were the pain came in.


I think in the little experience I have of 22 years ( yeah that’s small, to understand zindagi), love is just the otherside of pain. Our zindagi is made up of more or less periodic cycles of crest and trough. Crest being love and trough the pain.


But to say that I like only the crest and not the trough, would be naïve. Cause if you say so, than u haven’t understood love at the first place. Love is that one very special feeling that can bring tears to you. Eg when you go for a long trip and see your mom dad after a long time, your eyes become wet at their sight. That’s love.
But if u ever go to an airport, you will see a lot of parents, wives, friends crying when their dear one is going away for some time. That’s the pain part, that can make u cry too.


See the comparison its actually the same.we give it different names, for no reason. Its all in the heart. When heart is moved, it bring tears to eyes, it makes u cry.
One more example, we experience both the emotions, when we crave for someone, be it in love or pain.


Both are important, and equally so. If u haven’t loved someone for the fear of suffering from pain then you are missing out on a very important emotion of life. “Pain is beautiful”. It can bring out the best out of you. something that you never knew existed in you. Akon must have been in great pain when he wrote the master piece “sorry blame it on me” or “ I am so lonely”. These are master pieces that just wudnt be there if he hadn’t gone through this beauty.


It is pain that brought out the “ koi dewaana kehta hain koi pagal samjhta hain…..” . such master pieces would not have come, if it were not for pain.
Pain makes your strong. Pain makes you go closer to things that are dear to you. Pain brings closer to God. Love will pull you only to that one person or object. But not pain. It pulls you towards your world. It makes you humble. So many good things does pain bring.


In the song jane kyun, amir khan says “pyaar me sochiye toh bus gum hain”, it might be true. Pain and love go together. But every bit of it is worth it. Love is one of the best feelings on planet earth. Here when I say love I also mean pain.
So people who are afraid of pain, don’t be. It’ better to have loved and lost rather than not loved at all. Love is a great feeling to be in and pain is a great learning to go through. So go out and enjoy both of them. You will definitely come out richer and more humble.


Love=PAIN


Zindagi Rocks !!!!

Open thy mind ....

Open thy mind
free it of the bind

Learn more about thy neighbour
experience their flavour

Learn something about World Pain
in it thee have something to gain

Don't see the World through a tainted glass
come out of thy binded class

Then the World would be a great place
like the Kings palace

Then thee would be happy
like thee were when thee were in thy nappy.


Zindagi Rocks !!!!

Prisoners of Birth

I have read the book, ‘Prisoner of Birth’ by the accomplished novelist Jeffrey Archer. The story is about how a person called Danny Cartwright, is wrongly accused of killing his best friend. Sentenced to jail for 20 years, he flees from the jail and impersonates his in-mate Nick Moncrieff who was to be released soon, but got killed in the jail before his release. After fleeing from the jail he takes revenge from the real perpetrator of the crime, Spencer Craig for killing his best friend and ruining his and his fiancée’s life. It’s a really good book.


Well this was the only relevance to the tittle of what I am going to write now.


A lot of times we all have heard people saying I make my own destiny. And that the lines in the palm of my hands don’t really determine what am I going to be or what am I going to do in life. We all like to believe that we have full control over what our life is going to be, say ‘pacchis saal baad’ (DJiet’s pun intended here). we like to say that its not the when, where of our birth that matters, its what we do after being born. I used to believe that too. But somehow, sometimes I get the feeling that all the things mentioned above are not wholly true. And that to some extents we are all “prisoners of birth”.


Let us try to look at certain instances which shall prove my point:


My birth decides what am I going to be. If I was born in USA I would be American, India  Indian and so on and so forth. Then some further bifurcation, if I was born in a Marathi family I would be called a Maharashtrian, since I am born in a Gujrati family I am called a Gujrati. The bifurcation continues. Thus By birth itself I get an identity (an Indian, a Gujrati , and the likes) over which I have no control. “prisoners of birth”.


The birth is marked by the timing also. Timing as in the second, minute, hour, date, month, year. All these taken together to prepare something called my ‘kundli’ which is supposedly going to determine what kind of life I am going to have and what kind of person am I going to be, and even at times (and funnily so) decide which person should marry me according to the placement and orientation of the moon, sun and some other celestial bodies when I was born, but thankfully now this illusion is being challenged by some brave souls, God give them courage and make them successful. “prisoners of birth”.


The first close association that we are born with is the family in which we are born. It’s said that there is some proved correlation between our physical, emotional, psychological attritutes and that of our parents. So, the above said attributes are inherited to us from our parents. The kind of conditioning that I get will depend on the personalities that are around me, be it my parents, my siblings, my aunts, my uncles, or my neighbours for that matter. The kind of friends that I will make in life, the beliefs that I will have in life, and many such important things, all these are decided on my birth. “prisoners of birth”


The values that we get from our family are also dependent. If I was born in a rural area, I would be more sensitive towards the people around me, but if I belong to urban area the scope of sensitivity will be limited. “prisoners of birth”.


In India the education that I get will also be varying. If I was born in rural area where education is not considered very important, then I would not be able to read, let alone write this, and thus allowing me lesser opportunities. But since I was born at a certain place I had the privilege to get good education. Also one more factor determines the educational institute that I go to, if I was born in a reserved category then my chances of going to the biggies like IIM’s and IIT’s would increase many fold. Again determined on my birth. “prisoners of birth”.


These are some of the many ways by which we are the “prisoners of birth” and not the so called i-will-determine-my-future types.

Zindagi Rocks!!!!

Van - Vaas

Subbu (SCMHRD director) was very kind on us to give us three days break for diwali, though not too kind, cause he had sandwiched this break between (7 before the diwali and 6 after) our first semester exams. Had gone to Mumbai for two days, had a good time. It was good to return home and meet mom and dad, didi, friends and special friend.

It was also a good opportunity for me to meet all the infoscions who were leaving for mysore training on the 18th, the same day that I was leaving for Pune. Hardik, jignesh and saarim se mila. Acccha laga. Ab pata nahi who kab ayenge,mein kab aunga aur hum kab milenge. Looking at them I remembered my day when I had left for Pune on the 1st june around 4 and a half months ago.

I and jigi had a good last talk on the rajendra nagar flyover. We were discussing how life is, how we leave all that we were, and that we had for the last 20 odd years behind. All in the search of success. Our family, our friends, (our bike, yeah I miss her a lot), and virtually our whole zindagi.

He was asking me a question, ‘why do we have to leave all that matters to us behind like this? ’. I was giving him all the answers that I had given to myself when I had come to Pune ( like zindagi mein kuch karna hain toh sacrifices karna hi padta hain, ya kuch pane ke liye kuch khona padta hain). But I knew these are just answers. That’s all that they are and that’s all that they would ever be.

Final day in Mumbai on 18th I had gone to Ram mandir for my prayers, before I leave for Pune. I prayed there and just sat on the seats there in the temple. Right in front of the almighty, Lord Ram. In that peace and silence that prevailed in that holy place, my mind was still turbulent and searching for the question that jigi had asked me. ‘Why do we have to leave everything that matters to us behind? ‘. Still searching for an answer. And then all of a sudden I realised the answer was right in front of me…

Lord Ram, the almighty. The great lord that He is, He decides lives, Apne tarazu mein tolke sabko khushi baatne wale bhagwan. Sabki hatho ki lakiren banakar unko zindagi dene wale bhagwan, who bhi toh gaye the apna sab kuch chod van-vaas.

He loved his dad, king Dashrath, He loved His praja a lot. But still he had to go for a van-vaas for 14 years, away from the luxuries of a kings life. He left all that he loved behind (the only good point is he could take his soul mate sita (I can’t) and brother Laxman along).

The turbulence just settled down. The silence and the peace of the holy temple just reached my rather turbulent mind and now I had peace. I thought the Great Lord himself had to leave everything behind than ‘who am I’, just a mere mortal.
That way of looking at the ‘question’ gave me an answer to his rather difficult question. So finally now I am at peace and hope this helps jigi answer his question and gives him the same peace that I have got when he reads this piece.


Zindagi rocks !!!!

Failure is ok ....

Thomas Alva Edison the great inventor is behind so many inventions, like a storage battery, a Dictaphone, a mimeograph and many more which we are not aware of. The most famous one among them is a light bulb. Its said that he tried making a light bulb for like 10,000 times and failed as many times. Its only after that that he finally got the light bulb to lit up. After that the great man says that ‘failure is ok’, failure teaches you how ‘not to do a thing’. After those 10,000 tries, he says, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

That was 1879, now is 2009, around 130 years later. Now see how relevant is that famous quote of his.

Ever since our childhood days we have been bred for success, not failure. I can remember many of my friends who were reprimanded if they did not get the first rank in their class, they would cry, this is the case with everyone. We never talked about people who failed. Somehow there is a negative emotion related to failure. If you fail you are not good enough to live a respectful life in this world. Everything is gauged by the material success that he has achieved. By how many marks he has scored in the related exam, how many lakhs (make it crores ) of rupees he has in his bank. By what kind (or say what level) of restaurant, he goes to for his lunches and dinners.

We some how never look to find how many hours have we been able to spend with our family and friends in the last month. Some quality time I mean. We some how never look to find out how happy or satisfied we are, when we go to our bed for sleep. We some how never look to find the happiness that’s there in the daily walk towards our work place.

We somehow miss the fun of our daily meals in the mess cause we are too busy trying to figure out what all we have to do in the coming days, the assignments, the presentations, the other ‘important’ things in life. Try this: ask yourself what had you eaten yesterday for dinner. You didn’t get it right, right? You got it right ? Well then I can assure you, you don’t have any submissions soon.

We tend to bask in the glory of our past performance, how we had achieved this and that. We are going to think through what we are going to do in our future. Both ways we are not living in the present. We miss the fun, the simplicity of a small child who walks past us and gives a smile to us. We miss to smile cause somehow we are so busy with our thoughts of past and future that we miss our present.

A big shot professional from an international company, will not be able to be with her wife during the delivery of their first baby. Why ? Cause he is a ‘thorough professional’ who has to leave the country for a ‘very important’ foreign assignment. That’s called success. I call it failure.
Failure for me is not, not getting marks in a particular exam, or not being the topper. Failure for me is the feeling that oh I didn’t give it my 100% and thus I didn’t get through.

Failure for me would not be, when I will not have enough money in my entire life to have dinner in Hotel Taj. Rather failure for me would be when I will not have my family and friends to have dinner with, no matter what the restaurant. Cause I was too busy to spend time with them, that’s classic failure.

Failure is not when you don’t get selected in very good institutions like IIM A or SCMHRD (that feels good). But failure is when we stop trying. Failure is not when you have had a blow on your head from your opponent, no that’s not failure. Failure is when you stop fighting only cause you are scared of another blow on your head, that’s failure.

So I say ‘live in the present’, don’t give it away for your future, cause you never know, ‘kal ho na ho’. Be a professional and thorough one I say, but not the one who doesn’t have time to be with his wife when she needs you the most. Don’t give away the ‘real’ life for the material success. Cause at 70 when you are sipping tea on one fine evening sitting in a bungalow in some posh location in Delhi or Mumbai, you don’t want to have the feeling that I wish I had done this, I wish I had done that. If that feeling comes into you at that age, the time has passed to do something about it. That’s real failure.

Zindagi rocks !!!!

Customerisation....

The meaning of the title given to this piece is self explanatory. In marketing the concept of customisation is when the company gives some alterations, some additional features to a basic product in line with the demands from a set of customers. For example the customer might want a different kind of paint job to the car according to his liking. That’s customisation.

Now the marketer has gone one step further and is willing to provide many more significant changes to the product for the customer. For example we have car manufacturers (very small in number tough as of now) which will manufacture a car exactly of your requirement, the engine size, the shape, the tyres, almost everything.

Though the concept of customerisation is relatively new to the world of marketing, it’s not all that new to the world of humans. Infact its been in existence since ages. A very simple example will prove my point, this goes for all the men (well almost), who are very well behaved, well groomed, well mannered and you can put many other good adjectives preceded by ‘well’ to describe men in ‘front of women’. See now you know what am I talking about. I hope you agree. And then there is the other side of them when they are no women around, there are some other species all together. That’s called customerisation. Giving whats expected from us.

Same is the case with a situation of say an interview. We have different answers for the same question asked in different companies that we sit for. When I was to sit for Accenture interview in my campus placements (DJ Sanghvi), I was suppose to be a little aggressive and profit oriented, and then preparing for Infosys interview I had to put on the ethical me mask. See customerisation again.

Living in a society where Maslows hierarchy plays a role and social needs being the 2nd most basic need, we cannot upset the people around us. So what we do is customerize our behaviour according to how we are expected to behave and be. We put on different masks for professional life, life with friends, life with family and so many other masks just to fit in, so much for customerisation.

Or else live like the protagonist of the Ayn Rand’s novel ‘Fountain Head’, ‘Howard Roark’. He was a man who didn’t care about what people expected out of him and he didn’t give in to the requirements of the society, to fit in. He went about his own merry way (but faced a lot of hardships in the process) doing what gave him satisfaction and not going for customerisation of any kind.

Its very difficult to live a life like that now in this tough world. But it would be very good if we could do that, if we could be just what we are and not what people expect us to be. It would be great if I was a constant who will have no masks but ‘me’, but alas in this doggie dog world as subbu calls it there is no place for such a behaviour. So customerize and suffice the world.

Zindagi rocks !!!!