Role Reversal

I was listening to meow channel and the discussion was happening on “swapping your life with some others”. People were sharing their ideas of swapping their life with maid servant, Kiron Bedi, magicians, school teachers, then someone who accepts the third year forms in the college etc. It was a nice discussion going on when it came up as a discussion that everyone was willing to change the role for may be few hours and not for life long. People are happy the way their life is going on and though they know that the life of other person may be enviable even then they’re not choosing to go there for life long.
And when I was listening to this the thought that came up in my mind is that my wife is the person who really has to tolerate me the most of the time (and if this is a holiday, then ..!). So it’ll be a wonderful idea if I can swap my role with her and see how much I can annoy others and exactly which way. Don’t you think it’ll be a FUN?

Halder Jyethu

The opposite house in Agartala is Halder Jyethu's (Jyethu- someone whom my baba calls as dada - elder). He is actually my jyathamoni's (my baba's real elder brother) classmate. Both jyathamani and Halder Jyethu, whenever they meet will talk about the older school days. They'll recall some Kalu Mia who shifted to Bangladesh after partition. Also how good a football player was Kalu, they'll share. So I had come to know about their few childhood incidences also.
Though Halder Jyethu is jyathamani's classmate, he used to come to my baba more often and speak about so many things.
He is a wonderful orator. He can create the space wonderfully. Once I sit with them, I was not able to come out of it. Another beautiful thing about my parents is that they never said no to join their discussion. So I would what is happening in whose family and life.
Also Halder Jyethu would repeat the stories or incidences and till it would sound fresh every time.
He was having a knack of reading books and listening to Indian classical music. I got the habit of listening classical music after he told so many instances of great Indian artists like Bismillah Khan,Ravi Shankar ...
I remember how excited he used to get when he talked about Paluskar's movie songs -it was from a all time memorable Bengali movie.
He was very fond of the books by Swami Vivekananda. I remember once he shared about a message by Swami Vivekananda " The opposites have same reaction". The example put by Swamiji was that when there is no sun we cant see anything. Also when we see at the sun we can't see anything.
So I've a thought inside me - is it then correct that the two extremes in the number line plus infinity and minus infinity also produce the same effect. And it actually means that the two ends of the straight line is actually meeting at some point and thus the straight line is a part of a circle ! May be I'll die with this theory unable to prove, and next life I'll come to establish this idea. ( So does it mean that I believe in reincarnation? Nope. I got a strong message from Maharshi Raman - reincarnation is possible if there is life and death. If there is no life and death how can reincarnation possible)
Another time Halder Jyethu was talking about Syed Mustafa Siraj ( I don't know whether the spelling is correct, I know the Bengali correct spelling!). He is most probably one of the best human being born in the earth. He lived his life the way he wanted. And the novels written by him too good. You need to read to understand how humorous one can be.

Whenever I go to Agartala, I meet him. Ask about his health. He's now fallen sick with the diseases from old age.
Even then it's fun sitting and talking with him.

Me and Agartala

A request came from my wife to write something on myself.
I've started to write but don't have any concrete idea what I need to put down. Let me write something that comes up.
I've grown up in a very small place called Agartala (most of the people will ask me whether is from South India and I need to reply that it's actually from Tripura, a small state in North east. And then they'll say “Oh, I see. This is from Assam". Again I need to tell them nope, this is another independent state. I think their first guess of South India is from my complexion. They know their guess will work.) Anyway, I always was hesitant to say to people about Agartala as they don't even know the name of such small place. But in any case I'd tell them. Also I'll mention that I need to fly from Calcutta (at that time it was not renamed as Kolkata) and that would give an extra privilege. Most of my friends never flied in their life till that time. They'd travel by train only.
I remember that once my father was coming back from Delhi after his NCERT conference and when he was coming out of rickshaw, I thought that my life will really be great if I can go to Delhi at least once.
The most entertaining sports for me was playing marble. At that time whoever will be available in that gali (the area), we'll play as a group. I remember it used to start from 7 o'clock n the morning and go till 6pm till the sun was there. After dark we're not allowed to be out of our home. And this was a big complaint that I was grumble, all my friends are there out of their home till 9pm and we're the one not allowed.
By 7pm we'll finish our dinner. Kiran was our maid-servant. She used to take care of us, me and my elder brother. So once the rice was cooked, we'd go to her and finish our dinner. I can still remember that at 7.30pm "Dhrubojyoti Mukherji" would start reading the Bengali news and we'd finish our dinner and ready to go to sleep.
We had played all kinds of games in Bijoy Kumar School. All of us (almost 20-25 people from our chowmuhani) will assemble there and start playing our games. It could be cricket, football or volley ball or chor-police or ....
Dadu would be there sitting in his chair and see around if any one of us is passing by - he'd call me whenever I pass his house. He used to give me coconuts from his trees. And I would ask for "jambura", it was tough to get this. If we touched his bamboo made wall around his house, he'd shout "gelo amar tatti bera" (the bamboos will break).
Also I remember that we'd come to meet in the road side at 10.30 in the morning and 4.30 in the evening - the girls' school would start and end at that time. So all of us would be there to see the pretty faces.
The elderly people would also come there to join us and generously distribute their knowledge, although none of us would be interested to catch even a single word from that speech.
How can I forget the carom - it's the crazy game that you can even think of. Once we start we'll never leave the board - we'd play 5-6 hours non-stop. In this connection I remember one person called "Rankhal" - he was a poor chap and was very talented. He was angry too. People were scared of him as he used to get very angry, at any time. But he was very friendly to me. We'd play a lot of carom in the "KBC" club room. Once I reached home from my engineering college, I saw people playing a memorial cricket tournament. When I asked I was told that it was in the memory of Rankhal as he was dead. I can still see his face.
He went with us to Teliamura for a cricket match and was caught in the third man area. He was very upset that if would have put a bit more effort, it could have gone for a six.
When I look behind today, I can see what a lovely childhood period I had. I can't provide that to our son. I really miss that. And today I'm no more ashamed to Agartala, infact proud that I came from such a lovely place.
So many things to share - may be some other day.

Evening Party

Hmmm, an evening party. Last Monday,14th April.
We three people met at Andheri and started our drive to reach the party hall near Grant road. Kashyap was guiding the route as I never went to that area before (Also I run the fear always that I will get lost when I am driving).It was actually nice drive with less traffic as this was a holiday being Ambedkar Jayanti for many of the office goers .
In between I got a call from my wife and I asked Rita to pick the call, but she said that Kashyap can take the call as she is very careful about taking the calls, particularly from anyone's wife.
We enjoyed her statement.
When we reached there, I told Kashyap that it's a veg restaurant. He also got upset along with me. Veg Party ! Not a good idea. When we reached the party hall , the host was there with the DJ and other people setting up the room.
Then it started - drinks and music and dance. People were enjoying every bit of it.
I also joined them in the dance floor. I got the sense that though I was there with everyone, I was feeling more and more disconnected with people coming and joining the dance floor.And the intuition came to me is that most probably the other people were also feeling that, they were dancing more and showed that they're happy to be there.(This is simply my conversation, no truth behind it!).
One time came that the music was at its peak and I did not feel like dancing any more. So I sat in the sofaset and felt like meditating.
The surprise was that as I was meditating, the loud sound of the music and everything happening there did not bother me any more. I was connected back to myself. After the meditation I was once again grounded. And the internal conversation was no more there. I was watching people dancing. Another surprising thing came up - I was neither overwhelmed nor disturbed by the surroundings. I was just there, being myself.
I started having my food when I felt having it. Infact I enjoyed the raita and fruit salad the most.
And when I was eating the ice-cream I was asking myself why I'm having this as I was not even enjoying it, though a good one - but it did not give me any sense of satisfaction.
It ended at midnight. So we dropped Jigisha first at a nearby place. Then traveled back to our place dropping back Durgest at Malad, Rita at Borivali and Kashyap at his complex gate. Last but not the least, I got down at around 1.00pm.
I was surprised to see my wife awake at that wee hours for me. I could see the commitment she has in my life.

The Base Work for Success

After you read this, may be you can ask me whether I’m the best authority to talk about the subject that I’ve chosen – and the answer is may be “NO” and maybe “MAY BE”.
Success is always wanted by human beings; let it be at any level. Definitely I’m not including people who are in the league with our Guruji. And if I see my life, I can see that at every different point of time, success meant something different to me.
I can see one very interesting thing about what I “think” success is – it’s always getting something for me. No exception. And this has become a “rule” of success in my life. Can you also see the same pattern!
In any case, I’m experimenting with few basic principles of success that I’ve come to know. I don’t think it’s easy to stick to those very easily. I think even for Pele it was a hard work first to make sure that the foot ball sticks to his feet. He also practiced and I’m also doing that now.
Let me state what I’ve understood about these principles:

Truth/Dharma/Satya/Integrity: Various names that I know on this, but at the end I think all of these are conveying the same.
If I remember correctly I was most probably something around 14 years and my father told me one thing. He said that everyone looks at life from one’s “base”. And this “base” actually is creating the “sense of life” for every individual.
In those days playing marbles was the best thing in my life. It started from morning 7:30 till I was getting ready for the school. Then I’ll go to school and there also I’ll think about playing marbles. Whom should I play with so that I can win? Once I’m back from the school, I’ll eat something and rush out of our home to find out who’s available in the neighborhood for playing with me. In the evening I’ll come back, put back all the marbles and count what’s the position today. So it was my day and winning marbles was a measure of success.
Then time changed and so is everything, “base” also. Now playing marbles don’t call me. It’s no more a measure of success. At that time the “truth” of life was “winning marble and be happy”. No one could have made be believe that it’s not the source of happiness. And the fact is it was the base from which I was looking at the life and enjoying it. But one thing is sure that if I had not been allowed to play marble at the period of life I would have shattered in life. Now I choose not to play it anymore.
I’m writing all these is to tell is that at different time of life and for different person life is different and that’s the truth for that person at that moment. It may change the next moment, but for that moment that is ultimate truth.
From that truth I take my actions in life to fulfill the goals in life. Once I declare that goal within that realm of truth, I should ensure that the goal is met. The declaration that I only made, I am going to honor that. If I can’t honor what I’ve told then no one is going to honor that and then the success that I’m looking for is never going to happen. If I’m not going to make it happen then who else !
So what matters is that I honor what I say. That’s it.

Networking: Everything that I want to accomplish for achieving the goal for my success is not possible only by me. I require people around me whom I can ask for my support. So any highly successful person is having an extraordinary networking with people. And another aspect is that those people support the successful person is because they can trust on this person. So underlying aspect on networking is relationship where both the parties trust and respect each other.So the relatedness and oneness lies at the heart.

Environment: One very important aspect is the environment is supporting me for reaching my goal. It can be my family members, colleagues, neighbors anyone. It is so critical because the earlier aspect of networking can be fulfilled if the people around me are inspired by the goal that I’m supporting for myself and they can also see their goals getting fulfilled by that.

Causing it: Check my other blog that I’m going to write on this.

What's next

“What matters the most is the money that I take at the end of the month.” This is what I used to think even a few days back.
I’ve changed four jobs in last ten years and every time with a fatter pay cheque. And every time I was thinking this is what I was looking for. I’ll be greatly satisfied and happy in life. And this new job profile is what I was looking for. The last job was good, but this looks to be a better one. Both in terms of money and job responsibility.
Alas! Every time it comes out to be a recursive problem. Initially few days in the job and I’ll think the last organization was so good; they’re having those benefits and that employee friendly policy. Once this period is gone and I’m settled in the job, I start liking the new office and new colleagues and my job profile I’m start settling. Now few months gone and the mind start talking. You’re not getting the best package, you’re deprived. How? I don’t know. Talk to my colleagues and friends. Now it’s becoming more and clearer I’m missing some thing in life. So is this the dream job! Talk more and more to friends. More and more confusion. More and more mind is getting disturbed.
Then ask friends do you know any better opportunity in the market that is available. Yes, it’s there. You need the contact info of the consultants? Take these.
Then I start making calls to them, write mails to them. Some of them are friendly, some not that friendly. Friendly ones will tell, “Yes some options are there. Right now I can’t give the details. Please send your latest resume and I’ll take care of the rest.” Not that friendly one will tell “Please let’s have a look in your profile, and we’ll come back to you.”
If I’m lucky I’ll start getting calls. May be some interviews also, here and there. Something happens, eventually I’m not selected. Now I start jumping more and more. What’s happening? Why are they not selecting me? Is something wrong with me? I hope not. But I can’t sleep properly in the night and get annoyed with everyone in life. Guess who is the worst effected? Who else! Wife and kid. So they’ll also start behaving the same way. The ball actually bounced back. Then I’ll push that harder towards them and it’ll come at the same speed. Ultimately these will start looking like ace services from Sampras.
As this drama goes on and on, I become like mad. In the office also I start misbehaving with all. They also start avoiding me. I’ll tell “Who cares. I’m not worried about relations. If they don’t know how to behave, I’m least concerned.”

So this drama is going on and on.

Then what? Where am I going to stop !

Children

When I see around my life I can see people around having nice life and happy about their life. Any time ask them how are you doing - and instantenious reply is "fine" "excellent".
Few days back even I was in that zone. Everything is fine in life. What's the issue. Yes, it's true something here and there is not working. And that's fine. That's life - and it is like that. I know some few aspects I'm not very comfortable, but still I can drag on. And what can I do about that. Others are actually hindering in me not having the perfect wonderful life.
And I can not do anything with about that. How can I do anything if the people around me is not listening to my ideas. I can't do anything about that.

When I saw at my son, the thought I came through is that if they're not concerned about what's happening around them , who's saying what, if they are totally indifferent about everything - howcome I've become so significant about everything happening outside.
Yes, I am too significant about life. All that I think, is a thought. I don't even know how they got generated in me. And I'm holding these thoughts as truth.

As an science student, I always look for proof of everything. And alas , I never bothered to look for the proofs about my thoughts and beliefs.