CAN WE BE LONELY AND HAPPY?

Play it before you read........




'Pursuit of Happyness' is an all time favourite movie of mine which in turn made me a big fan of 'Carpenters'!


There is a background song in the movie called 'This Masquerade', its a beautiful song, written by Leon Russell and it was included in the Carpenters album 'Now & Then' released in 1973.


The song has a beautiful line in it-"Are we really happy with this lonely game we play...."(hope you have turned on the speakers), and i loved that song the moment i heard Karen Carpenters voice!(I guess that was a BLiNK effect!).


So this blog is inspired from that line! It made me think why do we feel lonely? Why do we feel happy? Can we be lonely and happy? and if being alone is loneliness then why do we sometimes feel lonely even though we are in a crowded place?


Sorry if i confused you all with those questions!


I think loneliness is a state in which we have no one to talk to though we desperately need to talk to someone, so in this case we avoid being lonely or it is a state in which we just want to isolate ourselves from everything around us, so in this case we choose to be lonely.


What about happiness?


In his book 'Shantaram', Greggory D Roberts has given an interesting definition of happiness as 'Happiness is a myth which was invented to make us buy things' (Girls are gonna hate this!!).


I think happiness is like a switch in our mind which goes On and OFF!
Some people are happy because their switch is ON most of the time while its the other way round for unhappy people. The best part is we can control that switch but do we know how?


So is being lonely a good thing? Of course not, after all man is social animal!


But at times we are forced to be lonely by the circumstances then what to do? I think we should be comfortable with it!


How?


By talking to ourselves.


When i was in school, a teacher advised us to develop a habit of talking with ourselves.
She told us every time before sleeping we should ask ourselves questions like:


How was my day?
Did i make any friends?
Was i rude to anyone?
Did i commit any mistakes?
What did i learn today?


She used to say by asking these questions we are actually analysing ourselves and more importantly improving ourselves!


And the best way to talk with ourselves and to be comfortable with loneliness is to write a diary.


Our brain has two minds one good, the other bad.
Put yourselves in a situation wherein you are in a shopping mall and your eyes caught a 1000rs note(genuine) lying on the ground.
First to speak is the bad mind, it tells us to grab it before anyone else sees it.
Then the good mind tells us to return it somehow to its bearer.


The best thing about writing a diary is that when you write a diary the bad mind totally shuts off! So the good mind guides us and helps us to understand ourselves.
I once read a quote by Mac West(I don't know who he is/was!) it said,


"Keep a diary & someday it'll keep you."


So true. When we write a diary we are not only saving our memories but we are also saving the time! And time is money(no you wont save money by writing a diary!).


One of my new year resolutions for this year was to start writing a diary(I was inspired by Sanjay Singhania!) and i do it almost regularly. Believe me its a wonderful habit. When i turn a few pages and go through the good times i have spent with friends i actually live those moments again!


Someone has said,"It's so lonely when you don't even know yourselves."
And friends when we write a diary we actually start getting all the answers to all those questions we have been avoiding asking ourselves, and we start understanding ourselves!
And yes we can be lonely and happy.... just try to keep that little switch of yours ON for most of the times..




So that's it friends....
I appreciate you as you had the patience to read this long blog.
The views expressed in this blog are according to my perception, comments are welcome!

THANK YOU TEACHER!

Hello friends,

It was 5th September '09, the Teacher's Day.

It reminded me of all my teachers in school( New English School, Miraj). In the evening i called Dixit teacher, who was my class teacher 3 times(6th, 7th & 10th), and when i heard her voice on the phone i realised how deeply i missed her and all the teachers in my school. My whole school life flashed in front of my eyes when she asked "Kaise ho betaa?".

Someone has said "Nine-tenths of education is encouragement" and i think that describes Dixit teacher and everyone who knows her will surely agree to that!

Simplicity was her power, thats how she was.......

I remember she always used to take the first lecture so that she could make us meditate in the pleasant atmosphere of the morning. Her lecture used to start with the Pratigya "Bharat mera desh hai, saare Bhaartiya mere bhai-bahan hai......", followed by the Pasaydaan, then a prarthana for the Guru and finally the meditation. And believe me guys we used to love doing all that. All those prayers used to transform us into some other world altogether, a world where she would speak and we would listen, understanding every bit of it!

She taught us Hindi and she used to do that without touching the textbook. So fluent and rich was her Hindi that we used to get spellbound.

She treated all of us like her children, her friends.

From 6th std itself she used to make us write 5 lines from the textbook at home, failing to do so the number would go to 20 the next day. At that time i didn't understand why she used to give us that homework i mean i used to think what difference would it make if we didn't do it?

But when i was in tenth, one day i was going through my old books(yes i have a habit of keeping all my old things!) and when i saw all my Hindi homework notebooks from 5th to 10th i clearly saw how my handwriting had improved!

This was just one example there are so many about her.......

Whenever i used make any mistakes, get into a fight with someone or something like that she used to call me and explain my mistake to me and so powerful were her words that tears used to automatically roll down my cheeks.

I still remember we were in tenth and it was our sports week, our class had the best cricket team and we had convincingly won the first match and reached the finals. Our final match was with a weak team supposedly an 'underdog' and guess what we lost that match. I was the captain of our team and i was so embarrassed after the loss that i was avoiding facing our class teacher.

But she came to us, we were standing on the ground feeling ashamed, depressed and she said "Even though you lost the game, you won as a team!"

I really feel fortunate to have had her as my teacher. We all loved her.

Friends everyone of us has a teacher in our life who really loves us, guides us. We are who we are today because we had teachers like Dixit teacher. So when you have time just make a call and talk with them and i think thats all they want from their students!

Thank you teacher for being there always, love you!!

GOOD LUCK!

Hi friends,

Attending the last lecture and that too on a Saturday is really boring and specially so if it sounds something like 'Embedded Systems Design'. I was trying really hard not to sleep and was trying to do everything except paying attention to the lecture. I was thinking about my friends and that's when i got the idea for this blog.

Every group of friends has their 'hangout' spots.I was wondering what makes these hangout places so special?

Take the case of F.R.I.E.N.D.S, all of them used to crack up at the 'Central Perk' cafe. Remember the shiny, coloured coffee mugs?, Joey's love for the Muffins?, Feebees singing?, the logo of 'Central Perk' cafe ?, sure you do!

When i was in school we friends always, (and by that i really mean always!), used to go to a restaurant called 'Rahamatulla' in Miraj near our school. It was like a second home for us.We used to love the chicken 65 and numerous ice-creams, mastanis and faloodas they served.

When i came to Pune i was missing Rahamatulla....

Then one of my friends told me about Goodluck restaurant on F.C road.

We went there for breakfast one Sunday morning and believe me the minute i saw the place i was like this is it!

Its an old Irani restaurant built way back in 1937. To put it in a nutshell i'd say its the 'Leopold' of Pune!

We had 'Bun-Maskaa' and tea that day and friends believe me everyone of you must try the tea of Goodluck at least once before you die!

There is something special about these places that the very thought of going their takes all our stress out and we look forward for spending some quality time with friends. We enjoy the ambiance of the place.

When i first saw their menu card i was amazed as it had the names of dishes i hadn't even heard of. They serve biryanis, varieties of chicken and delicious desserts(caramel pudding my favourite!).

Even when you are alone and all the tables are occupied you can just ask and share the table with anyone and i bet no one will say no. That's how the Goodluckers are!

The place has two sections, one exclusively for snacks and the other for snacks/lunch depending on the time of the day. We prefer the latter coz the tables there have tissue papers on them!

Over the past 2 years i have observed that every group of friends coming their is just so happy.

I think the reason we hangout at places like these is that the best part of us resides there!

So friends when you want to chill out or if you are feeling low always remember that you have friends and places like Goodluck to go to!!

Cheerzzz!!

RANJIT'S BLOG: BLINK

RANJIT'S BLOG: BLINK

BLINK

Hi friends,
I just finished reading a book called 'Blink' written by Malcolm Gladwell and i would like to share with you his views.
Now what was your immediate reaction when you read the word blink?
You probably must have related it with something fast,quick, something which happens in a split second or like the blink of an eye. This book introduces us to the concept of 'thin slicing'. Now let me explain to you what thin slicing is with an example (assuming that most of you like watching cricket!).
Do you remember the T20 match in which Yuvraj hit 6 sixes? I bet you do because you must have watched that video like a million times! Most of you might even remember the name of the bowler (Stewert Broad). So how many of you thought that Yuraj would hit 6 sixes when he had hit the first three? i guess not many including me. But when he hit the fourth one most of us had the feeling that he would hit the next two balls to 6 as well and he did!
Now blink, as Malcolm G says, is about those moments when we 'know' something without really knowing why, and how this ability is one of the most powerful we possess.
If i asked you how you got the feeling that Yuvraj would hit 6 sixes you probably won't be able to explain it but you know for sure, at the back of your mind that you 'know' it.
This thinking which takes place at the back of our mind is something we 'know' but cannot explain in words.
The author says this thinking which takes place behind the locked door in our brain is what makes this book so special. He says the snap judgements we make are not just blind guesses but it is the outcome of the thin slicing we do when we are in any situation. What happens is our brain actually analyzes the minute details about the event and leads us to the right direction and does all this in couple of milliseconds!
The book has loads of such examples which are very interesting.
So friends i suggest you all to read this book and we can have a discussion on it.
Kindly forgive me if i have made any mistakes(gramma/er) and hope you like my first blog.
Happy reading!!