The Secret Power

Probability: the possibility of occurrence of an event.

Few days back I made an interesting observation about all things that are most desirable and most sought after. All these things have one thing in common; they all have very less probability. Their possibility of occurrence is very less.

I can site millions of example from our daily life that we desire and has very less probability attached to it. There are many cuisines and dishes to satiate your belly but the probability of not putting up weight and fat after having them is very less. Finding a beautiful female but probability of finding her with ‘uncommitted’ status is very less. Leaving a chapter from the syllabus of exam and probability of finding not a single question being asked from it is very less. Examples can go on increasing, but the probability of their occurrence remains the same, negligible.

On similar lines the probability of you succeeding in task that is totally new and have high complexity is very less; still we find new inventions being carried out almost daily. You can see people setting up exemplary standards and new records for the generations to come and taking your thinking to next level.

Ever wondered how does even less probability does not effect the mind of the great people?

Or what kind of special power is present in universe that fuels the mind of the people that they overcome every difficulty and raise themselves to each and every challenge?
I don’t know what this special power is where it is present but this power makes mind body and soul take up every difficult situation and conquer it effectively.

Whenever you will introspect your biggest triumph you will definitely find in a toughest situation or final frontier that stood between you and victory and your probability of succeeding become were less but still that secret power made you pass the entire difficult situation effectively. That secret power made you work for more than 17 to 19 hours daily whereas we normal get tired after 10-12 hours it made skip your meal and concentrate on your work whereas you normally get hungry after 5-6 hours of work.

So what is there that you cannot see but becomes you sole partner in overcoming the difficult situation? How this secret power automatically reaches to you in time of need and how does it is able to get you exactly whatever you want very badly?

Ps: please do share you thoughts and leave your comments .
Rajdeep Singh

Jahan dana wahan khaana

It was this old adage that made conversation interesting with one of my family members few days back. How human being constantly toil to earn his livelihood but he is never sure of where his bread will lead him. In an amazing argument, that served as a great entry point to the labyrinth of how actions leads human to livelihood, my uncle concluded that captured criminals in jail has their “Dana” i.e. food placed over there that is why they commit crimes then they are caught and fed out there.
The crux of the matters is "Jahan dana wahan khana" where your livelihood/food resides you will automatically reach out there. In an optimistic mood he emphasized that we should be grateful to GOD for not scripting any form of illicit way for leading us to the livelihood.

Rajdeep Singh
Picture by: Tanveer Jubbal

Appreciate

Today, I want to talk about Appreciation. Some of my friends may find the content very obvious, but I would still like to write for myself and for my friends for whom it’s not obvious. Nobody is unaware of the fact that everybody loves to be appreciated. Everybody dreams of being famous and appreciated by others. Like every other person, I also love being appreciated. Though I was aware of word appreciation, but experience has showed me the real importance of appreciation. Appreciation holds importance in both personal and professional life. If we are working in a team, we should always try to appreciate our peers and sub-ordinates. Believe me, it does wonders. Though many of my friends already do this, but who don't should start doing this and observe the difference.

Even in the personal life, one can observe the importance of Appreciation. Most common example is appreciating your date. I must say that girls love to be appreciated and pampered. Though it’s an age old trick to impress a girl, but it still works today. But be aware that this trick may not work always :). Appreciation always disperses positive energy and boosts a person's morale.

But appreciation should not undermine the importance of facing and alleviating one's weak areas. One should be diligent enough to make a difference between a positive appreciation and cajoling done for someone else's benefit. So friends, appreciate others and enjoy being appreciated. I hope you guys enjoyed the read.

Chalo guys, bye for now. Will try to make entries more frequently. And ya, to add, this entry is a result of appreciation only :).

Deepak Datt
Blog : http://www.iamthecoolestguy.blogspot.com

A 'Pen'chant

This is the second time I am trying to write something. My first attempt got nice reviews which, along with some prodding from my friends, prompted me to write this one.
As I prepare to write this, one question keep coming to my mind perennially, why am I writing this? I am not sure. But I have come up with a list of reasons that could sound palatable to you, even if they don’t, by the time you read them, you have read them and that’s what they were written for!!!
Anyways, here goes the list:

1. A soothsayer once told me that I will have a good future with pen and paper. May be he wanted to tell me that I should open a stationery shop and hit upon teenage gals who come there with their mummies to buy lunch boxes and drawing kits. But destiny had some other plans for me.

2. My friends have been flogging me for past one month after I wrote the first piece.“You keep licking all these big books and newspapers all day, why don’t u write something on your own”. “Arre likho na! bahut achcha likhte ho tum” “Aajkal free hi to baitha hai be, likhta kyu nahi kuch saale!!!” and blah blah blah. They don’t understand that you rarely find interesting stuff that you could copy- paste and write your name under it, without getting caught. ;-)

3. Everybody is writing or should I say ‘scrawling’ something. Blogs, Forums, Reviews, Stories, Novels etc etc. It has become a widespread beemari now. So what the hell are you waiting for? You gotta write something. No matter if it finds any readers or not. No matter whether it makes any sense or not (like this one)? But you have to keep the bits and bytes of the Web flowing. And today there is no dearth of issues. From ‘Shoe hurling’ to ‘Hair Curling’, from ‘Badhti aabadi’ to ‘Rakhi Sawant ki shaadi’, from ‘Slumdog’ to ‘Your Girlfriend’s Dog’, you can write on anything. You just need to have a computer with MS Office installed and an operative key board. And, some idle time to kill.

But as I was writing the above crap, I wonder what goes on inside a writer’s mind, and by ‘writer’ I mean respected authors, not the random ramblers of the ‘www’ (World Weary Weirdos) family who daily tell the world what color of underwear they wore last day and with whom they slept last night. I am talking about Dan Brown, Robert Ludlum, Sidney Sheldon, Salman Rushdie and others of the their ilk. We appreciate them. We marvel how they could write such amazing, weird and convoluted fantasies in such simple manner, which we can never imagine in our wildest or wettest dreams. They address an unknown face when they write. They might have never thought that they would ever see or meet a guy like you and me who are going to read their work. They write just for the love of it. It’s not a profession for them, it’s their passion. They play God. They create lives, situations, vivid characters, unimaginable places, grotesque tragedies, shocking accidents, innocent love affairs, scandalous liaisons, incomprehensible relationships and what not. They say what everybody knows but a rare few could express. They can take you to the darkest cesspools of the human psyche in one chapter and can elevate you to the most sublime heavens in the other. They can help you straighten your life without even knowing what kind of shit u r sitting in. They could transport you into a different time zone and makes it so believable that the real world seems like a fantasy. They can screw your mind badly with the sordid details if you are not holding the reins of your conscience properly. They have the power to ‘change’, the most difficult thing to do for a human being.

They must sense a feeling which only can come after ‘creating’ something; I choose to call it ‘glory’. A mother’s feeling after giving birth to a child. A child’s feeling after building a sand castle. A painter’s feeling after completing a canvas. A S/W developer’s feeling after finishing the code. (Ok, Not that one. It’s somewhat closer to the feeling of a bull after slogging through the field enduring the heat and the hunter of the farmer all day long).

But yes, you gotta admit it that it’s a craft, kinda magic, which is innate. It takes years to write a good book. And an untiring will too. Shantaram took a good 14 years of Gregory David Robert’s life, not to mention the other trials and tribulation which he had to go through to get it published. Fountain Head and Harry Potter’s manuscript was rejected by 12 publishers. J.K. Rowling had to even change her name from Joana to J.K. because her publisher Bloomsbury feared that the target audience of young boys might be reluctant to buy books written by a female author. Today, these books are cult. So the moral of the story is –

“Don't get discouraged; it's usually the last key in the bunch that opens the lock.”

Similarly this piece may get trashed by many, but I will still keep writing. Because you never know which kick will wake the dormant genius inside you.

Signing off now, but keeping the lines open for kicks and kudos. Jai Ho.

Avinash Verma

Everything

From the very beginning to the very end...

Of good bad and evil... and of that perfect blend...

At most times we forget what is Godsend...

And instead.. tend to follow the trend...

It's easy to loose way... follow something that is partly Grey...

We love to play and forget the pray...

In the moment of our dismay...

we do sway away...

At times it may sting...

At other times it may feel as if you can fly with a single wing...

After winters, like the season of spring...

Only he can push your swing...

because he is the one...he is your EVERYTHING...!!

Mehtab Ahluwalia

Twinge to unearth completeness

I pen this down with thoughts running wild in my head. I have questions that are unanswered and I hope they will remain at that.

I believe in God and his creations, but I doubt the intentions of his creations.

When did we get the power to decide what is wrong or right?
When did we mere mortals get empowered with the authority to criticize someone else’s life and their decisions?

Why does everything in life have to be so calculated?
Why do we have a sense of paranoia of loosing what we have?
How come someone else’s life becomes fodder for gossip but when it comes to your’s your hurt?
How come life’s become so twisted the its getting harder day by day to untangle it.
When did we stop living our lives and started running after it?
I am told that the reason we have categorized things as good or bad is cause we want to find a pattern in our lives. That these patterns give us a sense of security and that these bring us some sought of solace. But I do not want these designs, do only definite patterns make a pretty picture.
Why were we stopped and told to colour within the lines?
When I see random splash of colours I see madness, nothing about it looks wrong to me but it is not acceptable.
Love is pure and forgiving, and it is supposed to be the most honest sense of feeling.
But how did it get categorized, why did we give this amazing feeling names and termed it as relationships. When you see a baby you just love that child, that love has no name, there are no expectations. I wonder if God Almighty had ever thought of all this when he instilled in us the ability to love.
Why can’t love remain pure with no give and takes?
When I look up to the sky I wonder why is it that it seems so different during the day but it is filled with riots of twinkling dots during the night. We have the same eyes don’t we, but we don’t see those shimmering dots during the bright daylight.
That’s how life is. Everything around is the same, but we just see it differently at different times. We say people change, things change but in reality I believe that everybody starts perceiving things differently to meet their needs.
I don’t seek answers cause I believe no one has them, cause when someone does answer you its their way of comforting themselves. I want to break out of norms and soar away, may be I will, and may be I wont. But no one can stop me from hoping cause I believe there is something called ‘leap on faith’ and that is where my hope lies.

Anonymous

Disappointment

Never thought of writing this, but may be the failure and disappointment make you susceptible to all this and inheritance of loss pushes the mind to the state where almost every moment defeat is palpable. The mind is hallucinating of losing even if you are on the brink of pulling something extraordinary. It is just like the vicious cycle, you create the bad habit of losing and suddenly this bad habit start governing your life.

Losing affects the mind in such a way that whatever is happening in and around you conspires to you in branding you as the loser in every small thing. Right from beginning we all are programmed to win, that is why we fail to behave normally when the failure catches us. Strength does come in time of adversity but we are never taught of how to handle it in our life. Inability to handle adversity along with the outflow of the emotions blinds the thinking eye and we are not able to comprehend for what should be done next.

Alleviating yourself from the pain of failure takes a lot of fortitude and commitment. But these two key ingredients are always absconding at the time of need, maybe their absence prompts failure. We do get so much fed up from failure that every clichéd activity we indulge in, we want to change it without realizing the major causes and extent of failure. We fail to analyze one failure and soon we get attacked by another one, it is just like failure begets failure.

However the truth is how we conquer adversity effectively without being taught of how to handle it, is what create the difference between winning and losing. Taking up the challenge to renovate one losing habit and polishing other one to an extent that it overshadows your weakness in tough times makes you winner.

Ps: If you aim for losing in life, you can be a winner by simply losing. If you fail to achieve your aim you cannot be a loser either.

Rajdeep Singh

Bench (DE)Pressed

To start with, I am a S/W engineer…by chance. I never wanted to be one. As a matter of fact, I am still not sure what I ever wanted to be. It just so happened that I became a part of this S/W industry. Its not that I am repenting it now because I don’t know what I ever wanted to, can, or would do with my life. I don’t seek anything. Life is like an ever flowing river and I am flowing with it trying my best not to get drowned. This job is my ‘Tinka’ which has kept me afloat for the past 2 years. But, this ‘tinka’ is now not that much supportive as I thought it would be (courtesy the Lehman and Raju Brothers Inc) when I clung to it during the turbulent times of my life (final year of my engineering when I needed a job as badly as someone needs a place to attend the nature’s call when compelled by a full bladder).
This industry has taught me a lot many things, sitting idle and doing nothing for months is one of them. It even pays you for that. Who else in this world will pay you 500-800 bucks daily, along with free breakfast, lunch and evening snacks, for:
1.Booking online movie tickets and taking their print outs from the office printer.
2.Doing train/flight reservations. ( a guy in my office has actually put up a rate list for ticket reservations through net)
3.Watching ANY movie with a hot cup of coffee at your desk.
Surfing the net.
4. Orkutting (Using Proxies, Its a unending war between the n/w guys and employees. Tum ek band karo, hum doosri layenge).
5. Reading news papers, novels and what not in the office.
6. Chatting …
and many other things that u couldn’t do gratis outside the office.

But all these things, after a while, stop giving you the delectation you experienced when you started off with them. After sometime you start feeling that all these things are only adding to your ineptitude in some way or other.
After a while your heart starts pining for work.
This is a situation like you are sitting inside a car. The interiors are dimly lit by the refulgent yellow light bulb that is smiling feebly on the top of your head. Your car might be in a tunnel or cave or a subway. You desperately want to see the road ahead but you can’t. Everything around you looks blurred. The windscreen is wet with morning (or evening) dew. You don’t know which hour of the day it is. You don’t have a watch. You want to reach the windshield to wipe the haze but you can’t. The moment you stretch out your hands, your seat slides back and make your hands shorter than the distance between you and the screen. You can’t see any ‘Wiper’ button on the dashboard. There is a CD leaning against the dashboard. You don’t want to play it bcoz you have already listened it to death. You have newspapers and magazines spread all around you. But you have read them all. You try to unlock the doors. They are jammed. You don’t have the engine keys. It’s like a bad dream.
You are sitting there, incapacitated, waiting for someone (maybe your PM or Boss or anyone with a superior authority) who could take you out of that stinking shithole. But they too are helpless. The keys have been snatched away from their hands by this Recession. You don’t know for how long you have to ‘just sit’ there.
You hear the staccato buzzing of the vehicles driving past you. You look out from the side windows. You notice the same people inside them who were there trying to fire the ignition when you drove past them. They are overtaking you now, waving smiles at you. You manage to hurl a smile back; the one which a runner up gives to the winner.
You ponder, Is this why they taught me to drive a car? You know that you can anyday drive better than many of the jerks overtaking you. But you have to wait with a clenched heart and a frown-creased forehead for God knows how long.
It feels like you are shooed to a brothel after being castrated. This phase, in a S/W engineer’s life, is called ‘Bench’.
Signing off now, but keeping the lines open for brickbats and bravos. Jai Ho.

Avinash

Long distance relationships: The beginning of the end

This post is merely an expression of my utter disregard of established institutions and a lose attempt at propaganda. My knowledge and experience on the subject are highly disputable. Anything I say can and should be put under industrial grade microscope. I will base my argument on observations - clearly this is not a subject for theorists.

The dynamics of long distance relationships have intrigued sociologists for centuries. Right from the time of Newton and before, people have been trying to figure out how do long distance work or to put it bluntly - how and why do they not work. The two most important factors determining the course of a relationship are trust and honesty. Put them together in a blender with a lot of seasoning called 'understanding' - perfect recipe for a healthy relationship eventually consummating into marriage. If any one of the ingredients is missing - then it becomes a recipe for disaster.

Trust. In my definition - trust means absence of doubt, not even a shred is allowed. Both should be able to trust each other - even on the edge of vulnerability. The x number of months/years that you spend together before the relationship becomes long distance should serve you in understanding each other. Behavior is extrapolative - you should be able understand your partner in such layered depths so that you can confidently forecast how would the partner react in situations which test the foundations of the relationships. Lack of trust gives rise to insecurity. Insecurity brings out obsession. And it’s all downhill from there. No matter how much one tries to fix it or make things right, if there is lack of trust from one end then that relationship is already headed for the gallows. The interesting thing is that trust always sits on an unstable equilibrium. And the unstable nature of the system all around that one equilibrium point makes it all the while hard to actually get there. Once you get there you hold it there nice and tight. You do not let your imagination or perception disturb it. Neither you allow others to disturb it for the sake of their vested interests. But if some incident of mammoth proportions does infact disturb it then its hard to get it back, infact impossible in some most cases

Honesty. Your partner should know you as intimately as you know yourself (or even better than that). Being honest is not the same as feigning honesty - that is even worse. Truth should not be at the behest of convenience or motive. Truth should be pristine even if it gets you into little trouble (alcohol indulgence, partying habits, courtship propositions to name a few areas of thin ice). If the foundations are strong, I am sure you would be able to get past any disagreement or argument which may result out of the revelation. If the foundations are shaky, then you will know where you both stand and either you can build it more strongly or you can move away before any irreparable damage is caused on either side. Talk to your partner; discuss every little thing that you go through everyday. Make sure that the partner does not feel 'distant' in any way. Live each others' life alongside your own.

Understanding. In simple terms, if you are able to answer every single question about your partner that starts with a 'Why' then I would say you have perfect understanding. Exchange of information is important and the previous two factors take care of it but the tricky part is how much you know your partner based on the things he/she tells you (honesty) and your own intuition (trust).
If a relationship is strong on trust and honesty but somehow the partners do not fully understand each other then the relationship is in an unstable equilibrium. You would feel that everything is mushy and rosy unless one silly little incident triggers off a catastrophe. Everything will come falling apart even before you can utter WTF ! A chain reaction could initiate which would easily knock out either the trust (you might start to get suspicious) or honesty (you might start feeling in obligated to share everything)

In the end I would like to say that if the arguments presented above reek of undesirable complexity or create nausea then just stick to the tried and tested basics - have good sex whenever you meet. Ring his/her bell so well that the partner has no desires to look elsewhere.
The proceedings of this space were partly sponsored by "Tony Stalker - Grey Label..... Keep stalking". And a message from our sponsors - "Alcohol can give you enough wisdom. Just look through the glass of en empty bottle (the one you just finished) and you will develop unprecedented perspectives on life."

Sarabjeet Singh

Resting in Peace.....

I opened my eyes to find heavy air enveloped all around me. My heart was pounding like anything. I could feel my young blood gushing through the arteries as if carrying some secret message from the heart to the ever working busy mind. The message was clear but still I couldn’t comprehend it. Its meaning was there, right inside me, I could feel it, sense it but couldn’t understand it. I was running away from someone or maybe something. Sweat on the smeared forehead was conspicuous enough to raise the brows. I was panting hard, and was about to collapse at any moment. The air was feeling a lot damper and was making me uneasy. Breathing was becoming much harder and painful. But I was helpless, unable to find my hands as if they didn’t exist. There were dense clouds of smoke everywhere around me, crushing my lungs with full force, squeezing out whatever little air was still present inside them. The pain was becoming unbearable. May be I lived to deserve this punishment throughout my meaningless life. I could hear voices, hundreds of them around me. They were telling me something or may be giving some sort of advice I didn’t wish to listen to. The voices were present everywhere, cursing me for ruining their lives. Suddenly everything had started making a bit of sense. Although I was still struggling to fathom the sad scene around me, but some part of my brain knew that this day could not be averted. It was always coming. It had to come.

It all started when I had taken that first puff boasting of the fake sense of pride it had given me. That comforting moment in the stairs of college had given way to this excruciating pain on the hospital bed. Deafening beeps of the ventilator were echoing from the infirmary’s blank walls, and were piercing through my ears like a needle pricking my flesh without any noticeable resistance being offered by the body. I was just lying there burdened beneath the remorse for those innocent people in the car parks and bus stops, that I had unknowingly snatched a part of their healthy life away from them, just for the sake of satiating my addiction. Now it became all clear to me. I had no right to interfere in their lives in the manner I did. Why didn’t I stop? How could I allow myself to carry on like this for years? A sense of sorrow filled my heart and tears ran down my cheeks past the closing eyes. I let them close and let myself die, repenting for the deeds I had done. And then the final words somehow made their way through my dry lips craving for water. ‘I AM SORRY’ is all I could say to all those voices and breathed my last.

Harpreet Singh