My World- Whole World

My World acknowledge my existence and Whole World just know that I exist.

People who knows me, people who expect from me, people from whom I expect a little, and people who would probably miss me when I will be gone, are part of My World. All these people who are part of My World are part of Whole World too, but for me these are whole world. These people are thread around which my life is hemmed.

So wat’s more important. winning My world or Winning whole world. Both is important but it must follow the order. It actually elicit a natural question, how do I know that I have won or achieved something. It’s when the people who acknowledge my existence acknowledge my achievement too. There will be many people in whole world who would be appreciating me, who would be congratulating me but at the deepest level of heart I know that’s fake. That doesn’t make me feel like a winner. I always long to share these moments with someone who is part of my world. And if I haven’t won My World, I will never realized my achievements. Nothing in this world exist without the acknowledgement from people.

Is winning people in My World world easy? A big NO. One of the reasons is because My World is least driven by logics and most driven my emotions. But that’s how the life is. Being a social animals, we have to win Our people or we would feel lonely in this world full of people.

My First (Ice breaker) speech in Toastmaster club

Here starts my journey of public speaking with my first speech in Toastmaster club. The topic of my speech was -

LIFE AT SINGLE DIGIT :

We all experience events in our childhood which reflect our actual being. We don’t need to recall those as our cherished memories instead they be with us at every steps of our life.

I was born at Nonihat, a village in Bihar state. It is a small village with population of around 6000. Mine was the biggest family in Nonihat popularly known as Ghirias. Ghirias had around 60-70 members and they all lived together in one big house. The family was divided into 5 smaller families, in which one was of my grandfather and others were of his four brothers. There were people from all the age groups right from an old man to just born toddler.

I am the youngest among my two sisters and two brothers. My brother is only two year elder than me and in childhood we fought for everything and always envied each other. My father was known as angry young man in my family and I was always scared of him and so was my brother. So we always kept our difference buried in front of my father but always fought in front of mom or when we were alone.

In Childhood my daily routine was to attend school but no study, play cricket and other indoor games like cards, marbles, Gulli Danda, Ludo and talking with people. Consider this - Every year there were atleast two marriages, atleast one kid was born and on an average one person demised in my family. There were already around 60 members and because of presence of relatives on various occasions; everyday my house was bustling with some or other activity.

My school timing was from 10a.m to 4p.m and after that I played cricket until sunset. One day my father asked me and my brother to go for English tuition. The teacher was a graduate unemployed so my father requested him for our tuitions. For me this tuition was big punishment because when all of my cousins indulged in playing, I along with my brother was going for the tuition. Not a single day passed when I didn’t despise my father for that.

This punishment were more severe when my autocratic sister (yes, that’s what I used to call her), 12 years elder to me, was home during her college vacations. During those days all I used to hear was one word – Study. Oh! She was equally dominating as my father and she was the second person whom I was scared of most after my father. I mean I was only 9 that time and I never saw anyone studying in my village ever, and I was there hearing all those sarcastic comments about my poor study, bad handwriting and for being a dumb boy. Yes, I was declared a dumb boy by my sister when for continuous 3 years I was ranked 3rd in class of 3 students. There were only 30-40 students in my school who were facilitated by 4 teachers.

Well my tuition teacher got job and he left the village after six months of tuition. And my sister was about to get married in few months. I was in class fifth when my sister got married. That day was one of the happiest days of my childhood.

I think curiosity to learn anything new is in my instinct. So while roaming with my friends I heard little slang and forgetting all the consequences I yelled one of the slang to my brother when we were playing at home. My mom heard that and immediately my father was called from shop. I was scared to death and thought of running away before he reaches home. Well, although curious, I am not very adventurous person so I stayed there.

What did u say, repeat it to me – My father was asking me with too low and caring voice. I raised my head up and saw his eyes. My heart stopped beating and I couldn’t respond anything. When he lost his patience he lashed on my palm with a wooden scale. Tears started rolling down from my eyes but I kept my mouth shut and tried looking towards my mom to earn some sympathy. But my father brought the steel scale in front of me and told you are not allowed to cry here. Go to some other room and cry if you want to. I knew when my father is upto something my mom won’t speak a word. So I switched to our store room and started crying loudly. But no one came for my rescue and after some time I slept there. No one discussed that matter after that day, even my brother didn’t tease me for that ever. And I never dared to speak slang until I was in that village. Everyone in the village knew my father, so I chose not to take a chance.

I always dreamt of being a pace bowler and one bhaiya in my neighborhood was my mentor. He used to teach me bowling skills and I was fascinated with his fast bowling. We went along well for quite sometimes and one day he cajoled me to bring some money to buy cricket accessories. With too much planning and risk I could sequester 200 rupees from my shop and handed it over to him. In the same evening when I reached to my shop, my father asked me casually, what you did with the money. I was shocked that he could guess about it. Now, I don’t have enough daring till now to lie in front of my father. So I told him everything and after sometime that bhaiya along with his father was present in the shop. That bhaiya was treated very badly by his father upon knowing the fact but no one told my or punish me for what I did. I still think I was spared because I was influenced to steal money and it was not done intentionally.

After few months I started hearing people murmuring about my father’s plan settle in Gujarat where one of my uncles were living. Few of my elders scared me by telling how much I have to study there and about my uncle to whom they characterize as same as my father. But I was more excited for the long train journey which I loved most. In fact, one of my childhood dreams was to become a train driver :)

While traveling to Gujarat I didn’t realize that I was double digit older and that, that was the end of my childhood. But I do realize now. And I also realize that I am the second person (by age) to get engineering education in the last three generations of Ghiria family and it would not have been possible without the effort of my father and my sister who always kept this notorious kid tamed.

——- The End ————-

One receives feedback from audience after delivery of speech. I was elated to get almost 25 feedbacks out of 30 people. Toastmaster really helps a lot to improves one’s speaking ability, so if you are interested join your local ToastMaster club.

My charming luck

Someone in bank directed me towards counter number four. I turned towards counter four and saw a girl busy in managing papers spread on her desk. I put my form on her desk to get my demand draft for JMET.

She looked at my form, raised her head up and asked with voice full of vigour - ‘Hey, are you going to IISc?’

Her sweet voice and beautiful face made me speechless and for a moment I landed in the dream world as I am submitting the admission letter at IISc, until I heard her voice again - ‘Excuse me!’

Eww, was I staring to her for so long !

I couldn’t think of any thing and I answered - I hope ! (Was that stupid answer!!)

Anyways, after that she told me all about his cousin who passed out from IISc, placed in BARC and now into making missiles. And all this time I was staring at her, gauging the source of her excitement. I was again in dream world for a moment asking her out for coffee. Well, I am among those 99 people who can’t ask a girl for coffee.

When she ended her cousin’s glorified story, I told her about the management course I am applying to and that her cousin did bachelors from IISc. We did bit more chit-chat after which she wished me lots of luck and asked - Sir, please wait for few minutes, take your seat. Sir!, Oh! that was painful. And why the hell I was standing till now. I felt so embarrassed.

Those few minutes flee in moments and my draft was ready. I thanked her and move towards out gate. I endured but forced myself not to turn back and look at her again. I thought that would be another blooper.

I ignited my bike and suddenly this thought popped on my mind - Can’t I have doubts on draft?

I was back to her desk again, asking about the DD number and all. She wished me luck again with same fervor. This time I was out, all smiling and again in my dream world - I am out with her and IISc admission letter in my hand.

I am thinking..

I still remember that I was at my friend’s home where I saw the twin towers getting hit by planes. I was in class 11th then and it didn’t matter to me whatever it was. It didn’t matter to me what followed after that in Afghanistan. All I knew was that they attacked America and now it’s america who was taking revenge. I remember there were talks in India that time about America’s boldness and India’s feebleness - This is how America treat their enemies, does India have power to attack its enemies; enemies such as Pakistan who prepare terrorist against India. Well ! whatever, it didn’t matter to me.

Today I visited Afghanistan with Khaled Hosseini. The journey lasted 300 hundred pages which I traveled at a stretch. My longest journey till now which I experienced with ‘A thousand Splendid Suns’.

This journey has left me with myriad questions; questions about life, questions about death, questions about love, questions about freedom, questions about hope, questions about faith and questions about God. And I am sure that there are no answers to most of them. If there are they are all subjective answers, not objective.

Somehow I am feeling luckier today not to be born in few thousand kilometers west of where I am. Somehow I am cherishing the freedom which I exercise here in India and somehow I am thanking all those who made India what it is today. Somehow I am questioning God! (It’s too subjective about God, so I won’t write anything. I am not valorous like Bhagat Singh to pen down my thoughts about the Supreme)

I was aware about the pathetic situation in Afghanistan, about the Taliban’s brutal rules, but in this journey I saw Afghanistan through the people’s eyes. People who loved, people who made promises, people who dreamed, people who laughed, so what if missiles were penetrating in neighborhood, so what if the next time it could penetrate their own house, so what if life was all about fulfilling the basic necessity for survival. A paragon of Hope. I realized, hope gives purpose in life and strength to endure.

Huuhh.. so many thoughts are clashing in my mind and I am not able to write anything. Suddenly I am longing to see my family, to talk to them. And in such times I hate being so far from my family.

I am thankful to CAT because I started reading to prepare for this exam. I am learning so much about life. I really am!

To Let or To-i-Let

Sounds Intriguing? Read on

It took two days for me to pronounce this word - Illustration; and that also when my cousin told me how to pronounce it. I was troubled thinking how can a word be pronounced which has 3 I’s as first three letter.

My elder sister had influenced me to study in Science stream instead of commerce after my 10th graduation. She asked me to give it a try and assured me that if I would not able to cop up with the English language, I can switch to Commerce. I felt the blow on the first day itself in mathematics text book with the above word, and there were other subjects also.

Textbooks for all the subjects were available in Hindi also, so I got in tune with studies in a year. Only text book which was not available in Hindi was of English and that also English as Higher language subject. I always passed this subject with grace marks in all the term exams. So what happened in Board exam? Miracle - The invigilator was sitting on my desk during 2 hours of exam but I sensed a tacit approval to cheat. So my classmate passed her supplement to me and I copied complete grammar section. I passed in English and scored decent marks in other subjects.

Do you believe in Miracle?

I didn’t speak much in English until I started preparing for my campus interview. I was going with my college friends and I saw a small board hanging on the balcony of fourth floor in an apartment. The board read - ‘TO LET’ (Only that much). I burst out laughing and told my friend to check the board. I told them that how stupid a person can be, who forgot to put ‘I’ and also, Is anyone going to run till forth floor to use public toilet especially in urgency!!

I need not write what followed after that. You can guess what happens in college when someone commit such a blooper. It happened when I was in first year. Few people still remember me because of this incident

The journey with English seems to be life long. I keep on making mistake and I keep on learning. Few months back while in office, my colleague pinged me to inform me that, she has ordered Samosa for the team. After few minutes I pinged her back - “Hey when is Samosa wala coming, my mouth is littering” . She walked to my desk instead of replying my chat and told me it is supposed to be ‘watering’. I gave my team a reason to laugh while enjoying the delicious Samosas. But I am blessed with the caring colleagues who always appreciate me by saying - At least you keep trying. HO HO HO

In general, I face trouble in pronouncing the word starting with ‘S’ and followed by ‘I’. However hard I try, I always utter ‘Shinger’ instead of ‘Singer’

With time I made bit improvement which was noticed by my manager. So I was asked to impart a session on Effective E-mail communication to the team. I prepared hard for this presentation. And revised the content many times. The session happened a month ago and the best compliment I received was - Is it the same Vivek who joined this team two years back?

We should celebrate the small achievement. I celebrated that night

The next day, my manager asked me if I would be able to give the same session to other teams. (There are 4 different team in my project working on different business. We hardly interact with other teams) . I told him that it’s an opportunity for me.

I was bit nervous during my second presentation because the expectation was set to the audience that session will be worth their time. If 15 people are attending one hour session, it’s 15 billable hours which is being invested and that accounts for huge amount. I was indeed nervous during session. While hearing the session recording I realized that I had used ‘So’, ‘The thing is’, and ‘now’ in almost all the sentence I spoke. It was so embarrassing.

Third session : It turned out to be much better relative to previous two. I rectified the mistake I did earlier and added few extra points which I got as feedback from previous session. I received appreciation note from manager of that team and also from leaders of the complete project. I have heard the recordings several times till now.. all of one hour duration..

I partied hard that night. Dedicated to all who laughed at me, Dedicated to all who then corrected me, Dedicated to my colleague who sits beside me and bear all my bad usage of words and Dedicated to Toastmasters.

“Either I do things correctly or I learn”. This belief helps me keeping my ‘mistake’ dairy blank. And as there is nothing in my ‘mistake’ list, I always be confident for the new learnings.

Happy PAST Gloomy PRESENT

Why do people always long for past? Why do they always think that time that has passed was better than what they are going through now? I was thinking about this few days ago and I did find some reasoning for that. Here it goes -

Think of an event when you were most depressed. When you thought of being completely lonely in this world. When you thought if it would have been my last day on earth. There would be at least one such event in everyone’s life.

Once you recollect those moments, try to feel the pain. Pain which you would have endured that time. Try hard to feel the same pain again. Ask yourself, if you can feel the slightest of the that pain now. I think answer would be ‘NO’.

On the contrary, now think of a moment when you were happy. When the world around looked pouring with colors and sweetness. Once you think about the happy moment, check if you are smiling. I think ‘Yes’, you would be.

I think you got my point. A beautiful gift to human being. We can’t feel the pain of trauma and hardship we felt in past though we can always cherish the happy moments we experienced in past. So when we look back, we can see only happy days, and the present looks gloomy than past.

Keep Smiling

Is your path clear!

Ha Ha! you may think it will be a motivational sermon as the blog title indicate, but it’s not !

Since I bought my Pulser on 22nd nov 2006, I have roamed whooping 30000 kilometer only in Hyderabad in just 3 years. Yes, though I am not ‘Roddie’ I love riding on my bike. So in last 3 years, I have encroached into every corner of so callled new Secunderabad and old Hyderabad.

This year, my bike’s third anniversary and IIFT exam was on same day. The venue of examination was same as last year and the path to reach there was lucidly clear on my mind. I started at 8:30 AM in the morning for about 8 kilometer ride from my home to the venue. I faced first roadblock on my way when I saw traffic police had closed one of the road to reach there. I immediately took alternate path and after travelling a kilometer saw another main road being closed by traffic police. On inquiring the reason, they pointed towards a billboard which said - ‘Run Hyderabad on 22nd November’ .

I went numb. It was Hyderabad Marathon and the only road to reach to venue (from my place) was completely closed. With frustration I asked traffic police to guide me to reach Hanuman Vyamsala school (my venue). He guided me with many left - right direction and I couldn’t understand any ! Luckily, one uncle in scooter heard me and offered help. He was going on same direction and asked me to follow. While following him, I traveled many new alleys and mud road which I never crossed in last 3 years. Amidst the mounting tension of exam these dazzling path caused my heart beats beating at higher rate.

That uncle left me somewhere close to the venue and directed me with few left-rights to reach the venue. With the help of many pan-walas and auto-walas I reached the venue exactly on time. You can guess, I was almost exhausted but relieved on reaching venue.

CAT is starting from tomorrow. Make sure your path is clear even though you have traveled on that path many times.

Best wishes to all