Return to Innocence

These past few days have been kind of a shock for me when i actually realised that the events around the world have somehow affected your my life. Events like 9/11 or mumbai blasts and shootouts have affected me as an individual. The indicative point does not highlight that i may have lost somebody or so in these events, I thank god that is not the case, but it is more about brandishing my image as a muslim.

Today educated muslims all around the world are being stereotyped as terrorists. People do not trust us, infact, they do not even want to trust us. The hatred in the hearts of people gives rise to the situation that i faced in Mumbai. I was to go to mumbai for a period of 2 months for an assignment from the company. I was told to find a house for myself for this time. It came as a rude shock to me how the agents told me on my face that i will not get a house as i am a muslim. One of the agents, after hearing my name, went to the extent of telling me that he has no houses for me as i am a muslim. This embezzlement has created a negative impact in my self confidence, which i feel that a majority of the muslims all over the world are feeling.

I did not choose to be a fundamentalist but a very liberal muslim. I try to find out answers for everything and not tend to follow something just because some muslim leader said so. Hence it becomes obvious for a person like me to understand the hidden sentiments of these handfull of muslims who try to make a mockery of the beautiful religion called Islam. These are people who are oblivious to the actual teachings of the Quran but they tend to find hidden meanings in the verses that suit their line of belief. These people are hardliners and have the highest level of insecurity and the lowest level of self esteem and due to this they impose their teachings onto the minds of helpless people seeking emotional refuge and answers to life's questions. One cannot blame the masses for blindly following these self styled maulvis as a majority of the people comprising these masses have been brought up on beliefs propogated by such maulvis themselves.

A minority exists that understands that this is wrongly propogated and muslims within those masses are being aggravated against the society and are made to believe things like condoms should never be used and one should have as many children as possible. I agree that there was a message like this in the quran that says "you produce a lot of children so that they grow up and become good people" but the context of this message is 1400 years ago where there was no population explosion of AIDS or inflation. Taking 4 wives has become one of the many issues that muslims boast about, but again it is out of context. When 1000 men went out to war 1400 years ago, only 100 returned. In order to prevent the widows from turning to prostitution and for supporting them and their children, this rule was passed, where the 3 wives other than the 1st were more economically dependent on the man rather than sharing the bed and having orgies.

It is really sad to see people blindly following whatever is told to them. The saddest part is that the people who follow blindly do not know how to think logically at all. Consider this, if i explode myself and kill small children and mothers or pregnant women or old people, will i go to heaven?? I say, God will kick you in your balls and throw you into the deepest pits of hell because you have taken innocent lives. I feel it is logical to believe this because my brain says so. I do not feel it is compulsory to cut a goat or a camel every year in the name of a ritual, but to keep that goat or camel for a year with me, treat it like family and then feel the pain that Abraham felt when he took his son to be the sacrifice. I dont think God wants sacrifices of the poor animals, but he wants us to understand the power of belief, conviction and the emotional strength that Abraham had. He wants us to learn that lesson and become strong and not go gallavanting all over the place trying to show blood stained clothes and prove our prowess.

Islam has been reduced to a dictatorship where God is portayed like Hitler and needs sacrifices and wars and deaths to satify himself.
Whose God is this? When will we realize the beauty of Islam and the true teachings of our Prophets? When will we be able to prove to the people that we are not terrorists? When can people like me and millions other like me proudly declare that we are muslims and we are the most peace loving community? When will this change? When will we Return To Innocence?????

Ti-waaaahhhh waaaahhhh--rriiiii

Recently in the news, a scandal emerged which shocked the nation. More than the nation; it shocked all the males who read it.

"N.D. Tiwari found in bed with 3 girls"

Not 1 or 2 but 3 god damn girls. Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now that was shocking news!!!!!!!! Shocking news as the person in question was over 80 yrs old. Lucky Bastard!!!!!

Well like me most of the males in this country are left wondering what this man took to keep his virility even at this age. When people at his age are lying in the hospital or are sick with inexplicable diseases; we find one guy who overcomes all these barriers and emerges as a messiah of hope for men who hope to keep themselves alive till they die.

Actually I feel this publicity for Mr. Tiwari has opened scores of avenues for generating a healthy income for himself even in this age. I am sure companies manufacturing Viagra and Shilajit would be camping outside his residence for endorsements for their products. I would not be surprised if he signs a multimillion dollar deal with Viagra for endorsing their product and i would not even be shocked to see an advertisement that shows Mr. Tiwari in all his glory with a caption that may read something like

"People say Size doesn't matter; but I say so does Age. Any age any national Just do it with Viagra"

If you remember Ghajani or Om Shanti Om, where Shahrukh Khan and Aamir Khan built their "to die for" bods, every channel and every talk show had a detailed description of how they did it. It was a fad, if they can do it so can we types and we saw a majority of guys hitting the gym. There were articles in magazines about their diets and their workout regime. I will not be surprised if the same happens with N. D. Tiwari. Mags and TV shows showing how he spends his day, his diet and his "work-out" regime. The target audience would be more than 60 yrs of age who would religiously follow their iconic leader and pray to god that one day they would be able to perform like their great messiah.

So Mr. Tiwari, like all eagerly awaiting males in this world who want to find out your secret of "longetivity"; kindly be fair to us desolate souls and disclose how could you achieve the impossible of a trio at that age!!!!!!!!

"JANAAB, AAPKA SECRET KYA HAI BHAI??????"

"Life is so constructed that an event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation."

Hell yes.. i agree with the above statement. Life can be so manipulative sometimes that you go to the extent of thinking what you must have done wrong in your past life. You never get the results that you expect (it can be worse or better) but never what you expected.

"Life is a joke to the people who think and a disaster for the people who feel"

Very relevant for most of the Indians or i should say most of the Asians who think with their heart and end up decoding their life very differently. It happened to me. I am an emotional fool who thinks with his heart and who believes that everyone is this world is good and if they are bad, it may be for a specific reason.

Recently I was hauled to Delhi by my company for a 2 day workshop (which went on for 6 days) where i had the privilege of spending time with my mentor Mr. BS Pani. Over dinner and a lot of wet eyed discussions i feel he analysed me quite well. The next few days we exchanged mails on what i was lacking and where i should become strong. It was then i was exposed to this new disease called as "Emotional Quotient or Emotional Intelligence". According to BSP I lacked horribly in this department and it was one of the many reasons why most Indians do not climb the corporate ladder very fast. Well I took it up as a challenge and tried to find out what exactly is wrong with my brain.

Man is around 10,000 year old (modern man) and is still struggling with evolutionary pressures while the poor human brain is badgered with everyday problems and the strain of coping up with changing lifestyles. In the beginning the primitive brain was a simple tool which had very limited functions to perform as the basic instinct was survival. It developed a kind of repository of smells and associated each object with a distinct odour for eg. smell for food, danger, mating, etc. This we shall call as "nose brain" which "felt" through smell. As time went on, a layer developed over the "nose brain" which was more refined in its thinking and was able to perform complex functions such as crying, laughing, smiling, etc. This was called "neocortex". I know I am bugging you with all the scientific name-calling but i promise its just a few more and it will be over.
As i mentioned about the neocortex it so happened that 2 almond shaped protrusions developed on either sides of the brain called amygdala. This is the culprit as it is responsible for emotions, affections and passion. This is also capable of "hijacking" the brain in case of an incident.
An example of this statement.. Imagine a situation where you are sleeping very peacefully in the night and you hear a loud crash. You suddenly jump out of bed with a stick in hand thinking it is a thief. You search around to find a small steel glass has tipped over and fallen as it was not kept properly. There is no thief but your body has reacted in a way as if there is threat even when you are in a deep sleep.
Your amygdala has "hijacked" your brain and had made you perform instantaneous reactions before even understanding the cause of the noise. After some time when you actually see why the noise has occured, you start to analyse and draw a logical conclusion. This is done by your neocortex. Hence we now see that there are 2 main entities that we can talk about viz. Neocortex (or the Thinking/Reasoning Brain) and Amygdala (or the Emotional Brain)

Let me end this post today by explaining who becomes the main culprit in any emotional event. The amygdala, we see, is more developed in people living on this side of the globe. (I think my amygdala is the whole bloody brain) So let us all blame the stupid amygdala for any emotional outbursts that may lead to shouting from your wife, girlfriend or mother.

So until next time when i can blame someone else for my mistakes... Ciao...

"The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on"

In the beginning.....

It was 2 years ago (I was not married then) when my married friends used to always complain about not having enough time to spend with their family due to the pressures at office. I was oblivious to all this and i considered it as an excuse for not attending the late evening parties that were held during that time. I used to mock them and make fun of them but little did i know that all that will come back to me when i get married.
I used to be a workaholic and i used to enjoy staying back in office and working in peace, alone, as i had no one to go back to (I was staying alone in Bangalore, family in Pune) so nothing better to do even if i reached home late. The pressures at work were not so great and i was able to manage things because there was nothing else to "balance". Those were the carefree days when i was open to everything my boss threw at me and i took it as a challenge to complete anything he gave me before time, even if it meant working those extra hours.
When i look back at those times i feel that life has taken a U turn and i am a completely different person altogether. I got married over a year ago and had the most difficult time of managing or should i say "balancing" both work and personal life. There were demands from both ends and i was torn between the devil and the deep sea. Actually i feel that there should be certification courses for managing the Work-Life Balance; it is so damn difficult to do it. You are confronted with 2 bosses - one at work and one at home, so there is no escape from both. The "paying boss" expects you to work in the same way as you were working earlier and keeps giving the same levels of workloads and the "spending boss" expects you to leave office in time even if your job is incomplete.
The biggest challenge for any newly married guy is to come in terms with answering to 2 bosses everyday of his life. Consider this, your boss gives you the most important assignment on the same day when you have promised to take your wife out for dinner or a movie and unluckily, you are the only person who can do this job. For this you will have to stay back or the job cannot be completed.Now which boss will you satisfy?? Dilemmas such as this are commonplace in the lives of all married men (i can now sympathize with them all) and lead to a lot of problems with their health. No wonder offices have "Health Check Up Camps" for monitoring the different diseases that an employee possesses and when these diseases reach a level where the employee is incapable of taking stress, he is quietly asked to go.

Who gains in this tug of war,you ask?? I do not know who gains, but i surely know who looses.

Effective management of Work-Life balance forms the most important aspect of survival in today's world. Another more important viewpoint that needs to be considered is of Time Management. A person who can manage time can manage his life; but a person who lets other people manage his time ruins his life.
I know of people who have absolutely no sense of time management and are the most miserable. They have a constant complain that there is not enough time to do anything. Their health is deteriorating or their life is in tatters, but they still cannot get to the root of the problem of managing their time effectively.

My advice is to begin with identifying and prioritizing events and relationships in your life. Once you know who is important, the job relatively becomes simpler. You tend to "create" time for them and even though it is nearly impossible to please everyone, you end up doing quite well. At home or at work, depending on your priority, jobs become much easier as you are more focused. I do not say that you will come out with flying colors from both the locations, but i do say that slowly your schedule of work, your priorities and your dedication will start getting accepted by everyone at both locations. You will feel that there is less pressure from both sides and there is breathing space that you always wanted. Yes, but this will cut your time that you wile away in front of your PCs chatting or posting messages in facebook or orkut, this you have to choose.

This post is an introduction of how one can manage life at both levels and not die early due to diseases caused by stresses and incapability of pleasing everyone. Over the days I will highlight how my life has changed over the past year by describing incidents relevant to the said topic. This blog is an attempt to help those poor creatures called married men who balance on a thin wire to survive the attrocities incurred upon by both their bosses.

Until next time...