Unconditional Love.

A friend of mine once asked me, "How can you resist unhealthy yet tasty food so easily?". Before I could answer the question she concluded, "You are different."

I know everyone is different. We all are different. Yet surprisingly nobody likes to be called different. May be I didn't like it either. I tried to resist by saying, "Let's imagine that your two years old daughter starts miraculously listening everything you tell her about food, diet, eating habits, etc. She also starts eating every food that you prescribe for her. In this case will you insist on giving her the kind of food that will make her strong, the food that will help her live longer and stay health?" She said "Yes, Of course." I asked her "Why?" Shy said, "Obviously, because I love my daughter."

I said, "Exactly! I can also resist the temptation because I love myself and I love my body too".

For many people it's not easy to resist this temptation. It's not easy for them not to eat unhealthy food, junk food. And rightly so. It is very natural to do what we like and not necessarily what's good in long run. It's been proven over and over again that every time you tell your mind not to do something your mind does exactly that or at least wants to do the same thing. So how do we solve this problem? Well we don't. There is no point in fighting against your mind or trying to suppress the strong desires.

Tiger Woods was once asked, "What's the secrete of your success?". He said something very interesting. "When I am hitting the ball, I look at the ball then I look at the hole. Again I look at the ball and look at the hole. I keep visualizing how the ball would go in the hole. I hit the ball only when I am very sure of it". He executes the process of ball going into the hole several times in his mind before he realized it in the shot.

If visualization can help Tiger Woods it can surely help us too. Don't worry about diet, good food habits, not eating unhealthy food, etc. Just ignore that part. Focus all your energy on how you love your body. Have unconditional love for self. Accept yourself the way you are. Accept all your imperfections. It's okay if you decide not to eat junk food and eat the burger from some filthy roadside restaurant. You don't need to be harsh on yourself. No need to punish yourself. If you punish or be harsh on yourself your self-esteem goes down. Somebody has rightly said living life with low self-esteem is like driving car with handbrakes on. Just release the handbrakes. Let the car move smoothly.

Appreciate every good thing in yourself and also accept all imperfections. That's the way you are today. Once you start loving yourself unconditionally you start feeling better, your self-esteem also gets boosted. Most importantly you start feeling worthy.

Next step. Start visualizing what you want to be. Visualize the kind of body that you want, the kind of perfect health you desire, the perfect balanced weight you want, the long life that you want to live, etc. Visualize this over and over, day and night, several times. Your desire shall become a great obsession and go deeper and deeper into your subconscious mind. So that next time you have that delicious, yummy chocolate ice-cream in front of you, you would eat only one bite. Or may not even eat that. You are no more fighting against the temptation. You have overcome it. You are free from it.

Weight loss is no more painful. It's very natural and also has permanent effect. Most important without struggling, fighting, chasing several different weight loss programs your lifestyle would be different forever. And you can plan nice vacation at some beautiful place with the money and time you would save by not attending different diet programs, books, videos, etc.

Unconditionally loving yourself does miracles for you. It moves you from the state of imperfection towards the state of perfection within no time.

There is also a misconception that loving yourself is selfish or not loving others. This is totally wrong. By loving yourself you become full of love. When you are full of love you can love others very easily. Once you start accepting yourself the way you are it becomes very easy to accept others the way they are without judging them. You cannot help poor people by being poor, you must be rich. So make a resolution today to love yourself the way you are.  

My Son, My Teacher

My Son, Aum is three years old. He likes to play in parks and I thoroughly enjoy being with him. Thus obviously parks are our favorite pastime. 

One day we were in one such play park. He was trying to climb up a ladder. He started pretty well. Climbed a few steps but got scared and started coming down. I said, "Aum, I have seen your abilities. You might not be aware of it. But gauging your skills I know you could climb up very easily. You can do it. Just try." 

He turned back, he wanted to follow my instructions. I am probably too lucky to have a miraculously obedient Son. While climbing he looked at the top of the ladder and got nervous. I reassured, "Don't worry about the height. Focus on the next step. Next one then next one and within no time you would be done." He was reluctant. I didn't want to force him much so decided to do the last attempt. I said, "Listen carefully, I know you can do this pretty well. Hypothetically assume if you start falling, I will catch you. I won't let you hurt. Even if you fall down there is lot of sand here. So just go". He gave up and I gave up too.

One day I woke up early, closed my eyes and started doing meditation. I wanted to keep my mind blank without any thoughts. Its strange how our mind works. When you don't want your mind to do something it does exactly that. If I tell you not to think about your right hand most of you would. Following the rule thousands of thoughts started pouring in my mind. I don't know why but the same park incident moved in front of my eyes. And a thought came from within aren't we all just like Aum? We always behave like him. We wish to accomplish many things in life. We have so many dreams to achieve. Yet we lack the courage to go after them. Always analyzing the risks. Thinking about all the possible ways in which we could fail. 

In a similar way our creator, God, or some infinite supernatural power whatever it may be, lets say God for the sake of discussion, might be telling us, "Son, I have given you tremendous potential. I gave you the power to realize anything that you dream of. All you need to do is to take action." We are too deaf to hear this. He might also be saying, "Don't focus on the goal. It does look big. Take one small step at a time and within no time it gets done." We ignore this too. Possibly as an ultimate attempt of convincing he might also be saying, "Just go Son. If at all something goes wrong I am here to catch you. I won't let you hurt. And there is lot of sand down here. Do it." We are too busy in figuring out all possible, imaginary reasons to not succeed. We never get this message. 

After this park incident we went to a different park. This time on a similar ladder my son climbed up very easily. He went up and looked down from there. He looked very happy. He shouted at me, "Pappa, I did it!". I felt very proud. 

I just hope we all would also go after our dreams, go for everything that we desire to accomplish. I look forward to the day when we all would be at the top of the ladder. Look down and shout back, "Yes! I did it!". We would be happy. God would be proud of us. 

Happy Fathers Day!

From the universe's standpoint many relations are repeat telecast. Yet from an individual's standpoint they are unique and special. A lot of us experience father-child relation. There is probably nothing new about this relation. It was more or less same for centuries. And it would probably not change a lot in next few centuries. Yet it's such a fabulous relation for many of us. Fortunately I am no exception to this rule.

I was always told you truly understand your parents when you become one. So true! If there was any lottery system for babies I am sure I have won it :). 3 years back we were blessed with the most wonderful baby boy. And it was one of those "big bang" moments that brings a huge paradigm shift. I could relate every small and big things my parents had done for me. I could relate to the toughest and most painful situations they would have faced in my upbringing. Yet I mostly recall the loving and caring side of them.

I can easily remember the moment when my wife and I first met. Unfortunately when it comes to my father my brain doesn't help much :). The farthest back in time I remember is- when I was about 3 years old. My father was carrying me while I was in half-asleep state resting my head on his shoulder. Very secured and comfortable. It was one of those moments that cannot be expressed. I try to grab every opportunity to carry my Son, stupidly and desperately hoping he would have similar memories :-)

You may be the weakest person in the world yet your kids would think you are Superman. Again just like everyone else I also had 'my father is my hero' moments. I always looked upon him for all the strength I needed throughout my childhood. For some reasons I used to there are bad things out there. Nevertheless I always felt very secured when my father was around. I knew he would protect me from all the bad things in the world. To a large extent this was true. But being unaware of human limitations I probably expected way too much :-).

I was brought up in a middle class family. This was in those days when the middle class families always had some form of financial crisis. There were times when my father couldn't afford to buy some really important things for me. As a kid I could easily understand the financial limitations and why I was deprived of something. However for a parent the feeling of not being able to fulfill kids important needs is a tough situation. Looking back I feel my father handled himself and the situation really well.

In general when it comes to anger fathers are very expressive and vocal. However they are very conservative when it comes to expressing love. My father is no exception. I remember an incident vividly. After 12th I got  admit in a college situated in a different city. My father came to drop me in the hostel. He stayed with me for a day. That was the first time I was being away from home. As expected I was super emotional when he was about to leave. He never let me realize he had any similar feelings. The moment he sat in the bus I knew eyes were watery on both sides.

He is also one of my early teachers. Taught me academical subjects, several sports and many more things. He tried to teach me certain things like why we should be focused, importance of time, etc. I was probably a bad student on this. Cause I took quite sometime to understand these things. Nevertheless I have fabulous memories of indoor cricket, carom, chess, etc we played together.

Sometimes I feel very sad that because of how my life went I chose to stay away from my parents. I wish I would spend more time with them in future.

One things I know, for certain, my dad is probably not perfect but the love he has for me would always be perfect!

Happy Fathers Day!

He is NOT God!

He's not God. Stop diminishing importance of his achievements by calling him God. God can do anything but not human. Everything is easy for God but its not for Human. Nothing was easy for Tendulkar definitely not free of cost. He has worked damn hard day and night to reach to a stage where he is today. It's the kind of hard work that we can only imagine and not think of doing it. We cannot do that- not because we are human and he's God but because he has passion for the game. He loves the country and has got strong desire to be in Indian Team and make India win every match. Had he been God, India would have won all matches. Had he been God, he would have represented World team not India.

I believe players like Sehwag, Yuvraj have got more 'natural' talent than Sachin but its the attitude on and off the field where Tendulkar wins!

People raise their expectations by calling him God. But when he fails same people start blaming him in different ways- selfish, lacks the ability to win matches, etc. Think of him as a normal human with lots of limitations. Allow him to make mistakes, allow him to fail and lose matches. Not every match can be won but still for past 20 years he has been giving his best to make it happen.

Strange we compare Sachin with God. May be that renders us courage to accept the failure of rest of the Indian team(scene of 90's decade). It becomes easy for us to excuse 'He's God. Not everyone is SRT so he should have stood their till last ball and won the match', 'I dont care about others, but how come Sachin didnt play well?' I agree not everyone can be as great as Sachin but can others, at least, try to learn 0.001% of his greatness and fail? The failure shall teach them a lot.

ती: कसला विचार करतोयेस?

तो: काही विशेष नाही , जाऊ दे.

ती: सांग ना? कसला विचार करतोयेस?

तो: बरं ऐक, rather कल्पना कर. आपण दोघ असंच चालत चाललोय. सकाळचं कोवळं उन पडलयं. आसपासच्या हवेत थोड़ा गारठा निर्माण झालाय. चालता चालता एक छोटी नदी लागते. नदीच्या बाजुला एक सुंदर तलाव आहे. तलावाच्या काठाशी आपण बसतो. तलावाचे पाणी किंचित गरम असते. दोन्ही पाय पाण्यात टाकल्याने पायांना एक प्रकारचे उब मिळतेय. आपण फ़क्त दोघच बेधुंद एकमेकात हरवून बसलोय. हातात हात गुंफ़लेले. तु सहजच माझ्या खांद्यावर डोकं टेकावतेस. आणि...आणि...

ती: आणि काय?

तो: काही नाही, जाऊ देत.

ती: नाही सांग.

तो: नको तु मारशील.

ती: नाही मारणार, सांग ना आणि काय?

तो: आणि बाजुला एक कुत्रा पाय वर करून शुऽऽ करत असतो. आणि त्याचा परिणाम म्हणुन की काय तलावातुन छोटे छोटे मशरूम उगवायाला लागतात. 

ती: शीऽऽऽई. कसला बोरर आहेस तु.  सगळ्या रोमांटिक वातावरणावर पाणी फिरवलेस.

तो: पाणी नाही, मशरूम फिरवले.

आणि अश्या रितीने मराठी भाषेला अजुन एक वाक्प्रचार मिळाला. 'मशरूम फिरवणे ': विरजन घालणे, बट्ट्याबोळ करणे. खरं तर आपल्या डेली कोन्वेर्सशन मधुन आपल्या न कळत अनेक म्हणी किंवा वाक्प्रचार तयार होत असतात. माझा एक मित्र 'चेपणे ' हा शब्द त्याचा मुळ अर्थ सोडुन अनेक वेग-वेगळ्या अर्थांनी वापरतो. 'पुस्तक चेपणे ' म्हणजे वाचणे, 'चेपायला कलटी' म्हणजे जेवायला गेलोय. तसेच 'चावणे ' म्हणजे खुप पकवणे किंवा खुप बोर करणे असेही बरेच लोक वापरतात. झी मराठीवरील सा रे ग म प ह्या गाण्यांच्या कार्यक्रमात अवधुत गुप्तेने एक नविनच शब्द शोधलाय. 'चाबुक गायलास ' म्हणजे खुप छान गायलास. अशी नव-नविन शब्दांची, वाक्प्रचारांची भर झाल्याने कदाचित भाषेचे evolution होत असेल. 

ह्या सगळ्या एकंदर प्रकाराला भाषा प्रौढ होण्यापासुन, भाषेचा विस्तार झाला, तसेच भाषेचा ह्रास झाला असेही म्हटले जाऊ शकते. असेलही कदाचित हा भाषेचा ह्रास, कुणास ठावुक. पण थोड़े मागे वळुन बघितले तर वाटते हयात काही गैर नाहीये. खरं तर ज्ञानेश्वरांनी सामान्य माणसाला कळावे म्हणुन ज्ञानेश्वरी हे गीतेचे मराठीत भाषांतर केले. पण आज आपण बघतो की ही ज्ञानेश्वरी देखील आपल्याला क्लिष्ट वाटुन तिच्याही भाषांतराची आपल्याला गरज भासते. अगदी २० व्या शतकात लिहिलेले गीतारहस्यातले मराठीसुद्धा डोक्यावरुन जाते (माझ्यातरी). फार दुरवर कश्याला जायचे अगदी एक घरात राहणारया आईवडिलांना सुद्धा आपल्या मुलांच्या conversation मधले नविन शब्दप्रयोग ऐकून आपण मागास होत चालल्याची जाणीव झाल्यास नवल वाटु नये. भाषेतला असा होणार बदल योग्य वा अयोग्य हा प्रश्न कदाचित गौणच आहे. तसा तो गौण नसता तर भारतात प्रत्येक २०० कि.मी. ला एक वेगळी बोली-भाषा दिसली नसती. नुसते महाराष्ट्रतच बघितले तर मराठीची अनेक variants दिसतात. मराठी dilaects वरून कुठलाही माणुस विदर्भाचा, मराठवाड्याचा कोल्हापुर किंवा नाशिकाचा हे ओळखणे फार काही अवघड जात नाही.

भाषा मुळातच जर self-evolving असेल तर भाषाभिमान तरी योग्य आहे का? काळनुसार किंवा प्रांतानुसार भाषाच जर बदलत असेल तर अभिमान तरी कुठल्या गोष्टीचा करायचा? भाषेतील बदल अपेक्षितच असेल तर त्या बदलला चिकाटीने विरोध करणे तरी योग्य आहे का? भाषेवरुन राजकीय issue निर्माण करणारया नेत्यांना ह्या भाषेच्या 'वाट लागण्याची ' कल्पना आहे का?

ता.क.- मलाही माझ्या मराठीचा जाज्वल्य अभिमान आहे. का? शोधतोय :)

Things that I miss before every US trip …

Now a days US trip is a routine for many software engineers. This is a list of few things that I try not to forget.

Important items:
==============
- Passport and visa, air-ticket.
- Health insurance papers: This is a bit tricky. I have seen some insurance companies have very complex procedure to reimburse your medical expenses and include several clauses. I have spent substantial time researching on this but couldn’t find an insurance plan up to my expectations. I have also seen many agents are either fraud or ignorant and promise things that are contradictory to papers. Make sure you go through your insurance plan and understand each and every clause and its implications. The best plan, obviously, is- where you don’t have to pay any single $ in cash (no reimbursements please) and minimal procedure at the time of deciding your physician/treatment.
- Baggage: Check with your airlines for limitations on number of baggages allowed, their dimensions and weight, etc
- Cash: Carry some emergency cash while traveling. You may end up in situations where you need to pay cash and credit cards are not acceptable. If possible have some quarters, typically useful for public phone calls. I remember a funny incident here. A friend of mine wanted to prepone his return date. The airlines, air-india, asked for extra charges but also denied to accept it by credit card. We could not believe this is happening in California. Air-india cannot be an exception to Indian rules J.
- Invitation letter: Make sure you have invitation letter or copies of necessary documents to justify your trip. In one of my trips I forgot these docs and had to go through a lot of trouble at the port of entry.
- Driving license and IDP: If you are planning to drive four-wheeler in US, carry your Indian driving license and international driving permit (IDP). In many states only driving license is acceptable but some states also insists on IDP. One can check the driving rules for the particular state.
- Car/hotel booking: Oh yeah you got to find some place before you leave! Also plan on commutation.
- Medicines: Have your basic medical checkup done before you leave the country. Also create a medicine kit for common illness symptoms. If you already have such kit don’t forget to replace the expired medicine. If you are undergoing a specific medical treatment don’t forget to carry required medicines and papers for the same. Have them in ample amount. I have also suffered because of less quantity L.
- Don’t forget to inform your itinerary plan to the person who will receieve you at the airport. This is mainly applicable to the first timers.
- Weather check: Check the weather conditions for the place where you are going for the period of your stay. If required carry sweater, jacket(leather jacket is a good protection), woolen headgear, hand gloves, etc. You may need an umbrella in case of rainy weather.
- Other important documents: Visiting cards, I-card/ access card required at the US office,


Other stuff:
=========
If you have enough space in your bag you may want to consider some items that you get much cheaper in rupees than dollars and hence makes sense to have them in adequate amount. These could be-
- Clothes: shirts, t-shirts, jeans, formals, undergarments, socks, etc. I know I am lazy enough to sustain for 1-2 months without washing my clothes J. So I make sure I carry additional clothes to survive for a month or two without having to worry about washer/dryer.
- Washing powder/soap, brush, etc.
- Tea/coffee powder and filter. I hate that American made tea/coffee except Starbucks.
- Microwave safe utensils and paper dishes: If you are planning to cook. Many hotels do provide the microwave.
- Food material like Maggie, biscuits, ketchup, etc. You can find these items in a good Indian store but still a bit costly.
- Comb, shaving kit, nail cutter, scissor, Toothbrush/paste, slippers, extra pair of shoes, exercise kit, pen, pencil, notebook, cell phone, cell charger, alarm, camera, camera charger, head phones etc
- Collection of favorite movies, songs, books.

Some guidelines:
==============
- Don’t carry any raw food items to avoid unnecessary complications at the customs.
- Don’t say ‘water without ice’ in any restaurant unless you want to try it. Use ‘water no ice’
- When you order something in a small eating places like McDonalds, Taco bell, starbuck expect a quick question "here to go?". You don't understand their pronunciation making it more confusing. They actually mean do you want 'here or to go'? 'To go' is a commonly used term for parcel.
- Oven is less used than microwave.
- …will add more as and when I remember…

Mukta-hasta shirshasan at Diveagar :)