The Importance of Name

I have heard the CEO of our company speak about the importance of a name. He says that if you want to market a product, ensure that it has got a right name. For example, what do you feel when you hear 'Golden-Eye' TV model (from LG) & 'Ajit' (from BPL)? Which one appeals to you? What comes to your mind when you hear the word 'Blogger', and 'Rediff-island'? A washing-soap names as 'Ghari' (meaning 'clock' in Hindi)? Or 'Surf' as a washing powder?

We notice that many times the name itself suggests a lot about the product. People assume that the product with that particular name can do something which other products cannot. This remains in their sub-conscious mind when they are making the purchase. In brief, name sells.

I was very inspired by the talk & then I realized that I too need to name the URL to my blog. So I am now shifting this blog to a brand new URL, which speaks for itself: http://lifecontinuestoteach.blogspot.com/

The content is going to remain the same. In fact, I have already added my previous post to this new URL. Kindly bookmark it. Jus delete the old bookmark from your bookmarks folder. Then visit the new URL & bookmark it.

Henceforth I will be posting on the new URL. :-)

Can We Care For Strangers?

How often do we care for others? We all care for our friends, family, relatives etc. But do we care for strangers whom we meet on the road, in local train, or inside a mall? We can win hearts of people whom we have not even met if we care for them. Don't believe it? Read on. This is a true incident.

My colleague Vivek was working in Delhi earlier. He received a phone call from a bank whether he was interested in their credit-card. He told the caller (a girl) politely that he already had one, and was satisfied with it. After few days, the call was repeated, informing him that the credit-card on offer had new features, and he can try it. He again told politely that he did not want the card.

Few days later the same girl called up. She again asked him whether he was considering trying their new card. This time her voice was a bit husky. He again declined the offer, but asked her whether she was suffering from cold. She acknowledged that she did, and then she broke-down on the phone! She told that for the first time a customer had been so polite to her, and she was indeed shedding tears of joy, realizing that somebody (apart from her family) did care for her.

Can we not care for strangers…..?

Similar Post: I Hesitated To Care

Don't Lose Your Strengths

My colleague Senthil Raja sent me the following story

Once a princess went to the forest for an excursion. A tiger saw her & fell in love. He went near her. The princess got scared & started shivering because of fear. The tiger said, "Don't worry. I will not harm you. In fact, you are so lovely that I am in love with you. Will you marry me?"

The princess said, "How can I marry you? You are so fierce. I am scared of your nails & teeth". The tiger thought for a while and said, "Don’t worry dear princess. For your sake, I will break my sharp teeth and cut-off my nails. Now will you marry me?"

The princess said, "If you will cut your nails, and break your teeth, then how will you protect me from other animals? Sorry, I can't marry you."

The moral of the story: Do not lose your strengths for sake of love. Because people love you for your strengths.

The Handicapped Son

What do we feel when we a person on the road, who is disabled in some way? Do we avert our gaze and look somewhere else? When such a person approaches us for some help (not begging for money), do we really try to help him as we will do to a normal person? Do we actually treat them as NORMAL person?

We may not be able to help such people always, but let us make a point to thank God for the ability he has given us, that we take so much for granted. Below is an incidence that I received in email from a friend, which gives us something to think about.

The telephone rang. As he picked up, and heard the voice across the line, it was a big relief. He told his wife too, and she lifted her hands up to praise the heaven. The phone was from their son who had been on the battle-field for quite sometime now. It has been more than 15 days since they heard anything from him. And now he had called.

"I am fine dad. The war has come to an end, finally. I will be back in a week."

"Very good son. We were worried about you a lot. You should have called earlier. Anyway, now you are back, no problem. We are eager to see you."

"Dad, I want to ask you something."

"Yes son…?"

"Dad, one of my friends has been wounded in the battlefield. He has lost his one arm and one leg. I want to bring him home."

"Yes son, why not. He can stay with us for few days."

"No dad. I want him to stay with us from now on. He does not have any other place to go."

"But son.. I mean he can't stay with us forever, can he? Such a handicapped person will become a burden to all of us."

"But dad, he does not have anybody else in the world…!"

"Its ok son. You do not have to worry about others. He will find some way to lead his life. Do one thing. You come off here & leave that guy there. We can then discuss about him later at our leisure."

"But dad…"

"Try to understand my dear. We cannot take responsibility for every handicap in this world. You have your own life to take care. Leave him and come here. I assure you that.." and he heard the telephone click at the other end.

One week later they received the news that their son had died at the nearest army headquarter. Full of grief, they went to see his dead-body. The doctor present there told them that it was a case of suicide. He had consumed poison in the night, and was found dead in his bed next morning. But when they finally saw him, it came as a shock to them. He did not have his left arm, and left leg….

Previous post on similar topic: Is He Handicapped?.....No.

Friendship & Principles

Ever wondered about it? Which is more important for us? I believe that a relationship can be sacrificed in order to keep up one's own principles. Some time ago, I came across the following, & now I am wondering whether my thinking is right.

Akhil & Arjun were very good friends in the school. Arjun's mother had died a few years ago. His father gave him money for lunch, and he was free to eat anything he wished. But he longed for the food that his mother used to prepare for him.

Akhil struck a deal with Arjun. Both started sharing their lunch with each other. Thus, where on one hand, Akhil could enjoy the food-stuff from the vendor outside the school-campus, Arjun was happy to munch the home-made food. None of them ever took each others lunch, without offering a theirs to the other .

One day Akhil dropped his pen. It no more wrote smoothly, & he had hard time to write the notes in the class as the teacher dictated. He complained this to his parents, but they won’t listen. Akhil told Arjun, “I wish I had a new pen”. Next day Arjun bought a new pen for Akhil. Akhil wished to pay for the pen. Arjun told that it was just a gift, and Akhil need not pay. The argument continued, and finally huge proportion. Both felt that they have been eating each others lunch but did not pay back enough to compensate for it.

Finally, as no settlement was reached, they decided not to share their lunch any more. Thus, both lost something which they used to enjoy.

I still wonder, what is the place for principles in ones' life. How should we balance these two parameters. I have seen a lot of instances where two friends go for lunch, one pays the entire bill, & the other friend keeps this in mind. On next ocassion, the other individual pays. It is assumed that both have paid each other, irrespective of the bill-amount which may be higher in one place. But nobody minds.

Let's realze that a true friendship is something that is not available in market. And one pays much more than money can buy. Do we remember how our friend took pains to buy a small birthday gift for us? The time he would have spent, the questions he would have asked himself as to what will suit you, what do you require most, what he can buy within his budget, that will be most useful to you, etc?

If you don't think that your friend has not done all this, then you may not have a friend. And the only way to have a friend is to be one....

Mini-saga: A Lesson in Just 50 Words

Ever heard the term 'Mini-saga'? It is a story that is written in exactly 50 words; neither 49 nor 51. I came across the term while reading one of my favorite blogs: Life Beyond Code. We all know that each story has a lesson to be learnt. It is a smart idea to put a lesson in just 50 words. I too got inspired and wrote a mini-saga of my own. It goes as follows:

Fear

It was getting dark. She walked faster. The street was not safe. Two men were walking behind her talking casually. Scared, she prayed to God & turned back, only to see them disappearing into a lane. Now she was alone on the road. The feeling of being alone was more fearful.

I hope it conveys the message. Another very good mini-saga, which I am borrowing from Rajesh's blog is as follows:

John loved the library. That day, he was engrossed in a book. He hopedto finish reading it completely. It was almost the end and then… therewas a surprise – the last section was missing. "Alas" John thought"this book is close to real life. You don't know happens next…"

In case you have a mini-saga of yours, kindly mail it to me, or post it here as a comment.

I Hesitated to Care

It has been raining in Bangalore for the last one week or so. The day starts with a bright sun, a hot noon, and then around 4pm, clouds gather in the sky. It starts drizzling around 6pm and sometimes rains heavily till late in the night. This causes problem for the people who travel on two-wheeler. They have to not only brave the rain but also flooded roads that are full of pot-holes.

One of my colleague, Senthil is just one of them. He comes to office on his Bajaj Discover. Due to rain he has been getting wet daily while going home. In addition, he had been forgetting to get his rain-jacket from home. On two occassions, he told me about this forgetfulness of his.

Next day while I was getting ready to come to office, I just remembered Senthil. It just occurred to me that I can call him at the moment and remind him about bringing his jacket to office. But I also thought that today he himself will remember to bring his jacket. And calling him will cost me Rs 1.20. So why bother? Just then, I remembered a quote that I had read on a blog: "If you care, people notice".

It stuck me at once. And next moment I sent a message from my mobile (which costs Re 0.70) to Senthil that he should not forget his jacket. What happened next was unexpected. Senthil called me up just to convey his thanks for reminding him.

I realized that even though I had hesitated to 'care' for him, he had not hesitated to 'care' for me. It was a lesson. He could have as well thanked me after coming to the office. But he chose not to delay it. The call costed him Re 1.00. But he did not think about it at all. It is a lesson for me about caring towards others.

It did not rain that evening.

Helpful Ones..

Last Saturday I had to attend a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) event organized by our Company. As planned, all of us assembled in our office premises at the scheduled time. We had booked cabs to take all the employees to the orphanage where we were to spend time with the children there. It so happened that all the cabs were full, & I was to go on a two-wheeler with one of my colleague.

When we both started, all the cabs had already left, and they were much ahead of us. Neither me, nor my colleague knew how to reach our destination. I had the address of on a piece of paper. Like in any metro, Bangalore auto-rickshaw drivers are supposed to be well-versed with the city areas. So both of us decided to ask these people for the directions to reach our destination.

We crossed roads, circles, by-lanes, commercial-streets, and by-&-by reached the area where the orphanage was located. Throughout, the 45 minutes journey, we approached more nearly a dozen auto-rickshaw drivers, and all of them were always eager to help us. One even climbed out of his auto to ensure that we took the right turn at the end of the lane, as far as he could see us.

It was a nice experience to see that the auto-rickshaw drivers who are considered to be a harsh community helped us, sometimes with a smile. None of them was harsh or shouted as us, whether it was a traffic jam, or a run-way.

Both of us, me & my colleague, lost our way at the end. It took us half-an hour to cover the last one kilometer of our way. All because we could not find any auto-driver to show us the way further.

Is He Handicapped?.....No.

As I have no cooking facility in my house, I depend upon the restaurants near my residence & office for my meals. In Bangalore, some of the restaurants have a typical way of operating. I don’t know whether it is same in other metropolitan cities in India. The customer has to first go to the payment-counter, pay the money for the item desired, take the token from the cashier, produce the token before the service-counter, and then wait at the counter to be served.

Last Sunday I had gone for breakfast to one such restaurant. As I waited for my turn to be served food, I noticed a handicapped person on the footpath just outside the restaurant. His legs were of no use, & he had to drag himself using his hands to move. He seemed to be a beggar looking forward to earn his daily bread. I watched him as he inched his way towards the people who were standing outside the eating area. They had either finished their breakfast or were deciding upon the menu. To my surprise, the beggar did not approach anybody. He seem to be waiting for something.

At that moment a two-wheeler arrived, carrying a person and two children. The beggar immediately went towards them. And instead of asking them to give something, he helped the children get down from the vehicle. The two kids seem to know him, as they smiled when they saw him. After the children were on their feet, their father spoke some words to this beggar. Even though I do not understand their language fully, I understood enough to make me feel proud of the beggar, or the person whom I assumed to be one. I realized that this person is a day-time care-taker for the children. His disability does not hamper him, and he is able to earn his living with dignity. It was a moment filled with joy for me to realize that we have one beggar less in our society.

I learned the lesson that it is our mind which hampers our progress & not our body. Had this person thought that he cannot earn his living once his legs were of no use, he would have been left to the mercy of others. But his confidence in himself, and his will-power had made him self-dependent.

My thought-process in this line was then disrupted as my breakfast was served by the man behind the counter...

Well Begun is Half-done

We have a weekly program in our office. It is named as Wissendock. “Wissen”, in German, means “Wisdom”. This program involves a series of lectures & team-activities, & is conducted voluntarily by employees of the company.

As a part of this program, our Business Development Manager, Vivek, was scheduled to give a talk on EQ. It was scheduled to start at 4pm. Around 3:55 pm we were told to settle down in the lecture-hall. We all move in, and Vivek came and took his place. He seemed to be prepared well for the talk. We all were sitting now, and still he seemed to be waiting for something to start.

Then suddenly he shouted at one of our co-workers present in the hall. “Why are you talking there? Do you think I am a fool standing here waiting to speak to you all? What do you think of yourself? Can’t you come and take your seat?”

The entire hall went silent at this burst–out from him. Nobody had expected Vivek to behave in such a manner. He is known to be one of the coolest guy around. The employee who was target of this burst, did not know what to do (he is junior to Vivek). He silently went and took his seat.

And then Vivek burst out laughing. He explained to us that what he did was just a demo of a person who has a low EQ than average……

Public speaking is an art. The speaker has to capture not only the attention of his audience, but also drive home the key-points of his topic to them. And when a speaker knows how to capture the attention of audience, his job is almost done. By starting in such a fashion, Vivek not only captured our attention, but also gave a demo as to what we would not do if we have a high EQ. It was a good beginning.

Not to forget to mention, the targeted person is a close friend of Vivek. Even as he was shocked from the out-burst, he knew in his heart that it was not to be taken seriously. Well done Vivek!

Everybody is a Role-Model

Have you heard this saying – “One should keep improving throughout one’s life”? Many a times we would have tried to put it into practice. We would have looked for role-models around ourselves to learn something from them. We might have searched for instances in their life so that we can learn a lesson that life is here to teach us.

Unfortunately, it is not that easy to find role-models. All the qualities that we admire are not found in a single person. On the other hand, many times we find people who are totally opposite. They have those qualities that are not worth emulating. And if we interact with such people quite often, this thought will come to our mind one time or the other, “Can’t these people see me & learn from me? Why can’t they take me as their role-model?”

Here I would like to quote from a mail that I got recently from my friend, Ramanathan. He has commented on this very subject. The excerpt is as follows:

“……be a keen observant of your surrounding and people for they are the best teachers. They teach in either way. One is either how to be or how to do or how to live and the other is either how not to be or how not to do or how not to live like them...... this is a part of life... I have personally gained a lot from such observation....”

Suffice to say, if we cannot learn what to become, we should at least learn what not to become. These people around us are also role-models. Only we need to learn from them in a bit different way.

Thank you Ramanathan……

Nip it in the Bud

Last week, my young cousin sister was getting ready to make chapattis for all of us. It was first time she was making chapattis. I was to supervise her. The task of making chapattis involves making dough out of wheat-flour, cutting it into small pieces, roll each piece into a flat pie-shape, and then bake it on the stove.

As she started making the dough, I stood by her side & watched her silently. After making the dough, she asked me whether it was rightly made. Unfortunately, it was not. The dough she made was quite hard. Even as I noticed the flaw, I told her to go ahead with rolling the chapattis. I thought that I should inform her of the mistake only after she finishes the chapattis.

The hard dough made it difficult to roll chapattis. It took almost double the time to roll out the required number. The shape also was not round but uneven. As the chapattis were put on the oven, they were getting stuck on the pan, & some even got burnt, unfit to eat. Finally I myself had to take out some more flour, make dough, & cook chapattis. The lunch was served one & a half hour late. All because of me as I did not correct my sister during the initial stage.

When we are asked to supervise somebody’s work, we should not let the person to carry on with flaws in the basic plan, thinking that the concerned person will learn from his mistake when he gets a final product, full of flaws. Then there is absolutely no need for our supervision.

As a guide / manager / supervisor, one’s job is to nip the flaw in the bud itself. Otherwise, the blame may as well come to us for not being attentive to our job…..

"What is Spirituality?"

Last week I faced a tricky question from my colleague. It was, “What is spirituality?” And even as I was preparing to answer, another question bamboozled me: “Is spirituality Mind?”

During my college years, I have heard enough on spirituality. We had had long discussions on the subject, which included hot debates & sometimes even classroom lectures. But this question did make me think.

‘Spiritual’ comes from ‘spirit’, which means something abstract. What is that abstract? It is the state of mind where one sees same energy flowing in everything around him. He believes that the same life-force runs through everyone of us. This knowledge penetrates into every aspect of his life, & he is no more worried about any untoward incident. He treats everything with equanimity. When such a state of mind is reached, life becomes a game. And one enjoys it. Nothing in life remains to be conquered.

Coming back to the situation, I was still pondering over the question. Then, one of my colleagues who had heard the questions put to me, replied to both of us, “What is not Spirituality?”

Blessing In Disguise

Last week it was the Birthday of one of my Senior Colleague. We all were set to have a grand lunch in a nearby restaurant, which he had agreed to sponsor. When the lunch-time came we all proceeded towards the decided venue.

Once we all were seated for lunch, I noticed that two members of the Board of Directors had joined us for the lunch. They had come for a meeting, and as it was their lunch-time too, they were invited to join us. This meant that our B'day pal will have to spend some more from his pocket than he would have planned initially. (I had no doubts that he can easily afford it.)

The lunch was in buffet fashion, & we enjoyed ourselves with the multitude of dishes. He was given a gift on behalf of the organization, and all of us sang the traditional B'day song. When it was all over, the bill came. And to surprise of all of us present there, one of the Board Member paid the entire bill, citing it as an additional B’day gift to our colleague.

Many times when we face a problem, we crib about it. We think why we are facing such a problem. What wrong have we done to anybody? We tend to forget that these very problems are the channels through which we utilize our hidden potential. We become stronger. We become tougher, and can face more difficult challenges. When we solve problems at our workplace, they become a reason for our promotion. When we solve problems in life, we overcome our weaknesses & stand tall above others.

One should remember that difficulties are blessings in disguise.... just like the Board Member who joined for the free lunch...........

Making The Right Choice

Recently I met one of our ex-colleague who had recently joined an MNC in Chennai. As we set down to have a meal, we started to ask her about her new job, workplace, colleagues etc. What she told is worth sharing.

Her new job was really exciting. She got a break in the area of her choice. Her salary was much more than she was getting in her last job. The distance between her office and her place of residence was also reduced, to just 15 minutes of walk. All this sounded very good to all of us & we really felt happy for her.

But then she told that she missed something in her new life. She said that she missed all the fun that we used to have. In her new workplace, where she had been working for one month now, she had no friends. She hardly had any rapo with anybody. Employees seem to concentrate only on their work. There is not much interaction between them. The employees who sit near-by her were all at least two years senior to her. They did not interact much with her, and she being new, also hesitated to mix with them. This was the case not only with her, but with the other newly-joined employees too. They were seated in the midst of senior employees, and faced this problem of not knowing anybody else than their respective reporting manager. Even during the lunch-time, our colleague had to eat alone, and go back to her desk to continue her work. What struck us most that this becomes a habit for the new employees too, so when they become a senior employee, they too don't interact much with the freshers.

Next time when you are planning to switch to a new job, think about it. What kind of workplace you prefer? Would you like a place where your colleagues know you, & spend time with you? Or would you prefer a corporate office where you do your job and your co-workers theirs? I don't deny the importance of a better financial prospective. And money is not everything in life.......

"This is Team-work"

I would like to share something which stands out as a good example of what real teamwork is.
I was working on the database of the project (the same which occurred in my previous post). I was working on a trial version of Toad software, an SQL database tool. I had to type in same values in a particular column across multiple rows. To reduce my work, I just entered one word in each cell of the column.
Once I had completed the data entry, I wrote an SQL query to replace the word by the desired phrase. To my surprise, only one of the 18 cells was edited by the query. I tried again & nothing further happened. Confused, I called one of my senior to see into the problem. She has a very good hold on SQL queries. She typed in a complex query. And the result came. A result that none of us neither wanted, nor expected. All the cells in that particular column had changed to zero!!!
I know that the query that was given did not include anything like 'zero', ‘nil’, 'null' etc. But still both of us were staring at the screen bewildered.
Though I had a backup of the data, but copying from the backup to this database will mean that whatever I had done for the last 4 hours will be lost.
As I prepared myself to copy from the backup, my QA team-mate Sowmya Ambiti came to see what has been happening. When I explained the problem, she smiled, told me to relax and take a 30 minutes break. She took upon restoring the data to herself, even without my asking. She copied the data from the backup, in such a smart way that the data loss was minimal. I had not lost entire 4 hours work, but only what I could redo in a few minutes.
Sowmya denied acknowledging any praise for the work that she did. She just told me, “This is team-work”. I had no words to express my feelings…….

Not Much Workload...........?

A comment from my boss on last Friday made me think.

I was sitting in my chair, working on my system. That day I had to grab some data directly from the internet, and put it in the project database. Now there was something wrong with the internet line and it was very slow. I had to wait for 1 minute to open a normal html page. Sometimes, even more... As my work fully depended on the net, I had nothing to do but watch the progress of the web-page loading on my screen. To remove the boredom, I had plugged in my earphones, listening to soft, instrumentsl music. At that time, my boss passed behind me. He saw me ..sitting idle in the chair, hands away from the keyboard and mouse, simply staring on the monitor, with earphones in my ears. In a juvial tone, he said to one of my colleagues, "Looks like Prashant does not have much workload..." I looked back at him ( I could hear what he said even with earphones plugged in ), and smiled. I protested too, in a friendly manner, and he walked away, smiling.

Then I started thinking about it. I have enough work. Just because I don't frown, complain to anybody, scratch my head, does that mean I have les work load than others? Or do I take it as a compliment, that inspite of the workload, I still remain cool & comfortable, not showing any kind of stress. ( On an average, I spend 11 hours in the office daily, for 5 days, and few more hours on Saturdays, for which we do not get any extra compensation).

Should I not listen to music when the work is dragging & the network is down? Should I complain to everybody regarding the workload that I have inspite of knowing that they work for same time duration in the week? Should I pretend to be stressed out even though I am not? Or should I continue... my way.....till they realise....

Did You Give Something?

As one travels from one part of Bangalore to another, he can see the changes that have come over years. Once upon a time, Whitefield was considered to be outside the city. It was just 5 years ago. But now, a traffic jam in this area too is considered as normal. The same has been the state of many other parts in the city. Once considered as remote places, these areas are now attracting a lot of traffic, and hub-drub of the city.

And as you are stuck in a traffic-jam, you will definitely feel miserable. The noise around you, the pollution caused by the vehicles, the pot-holes, that you would have encountered on the way, & the ones that you will encounter on the way to your destination, all this will make you wonder as to what has happened to the city that is supposed to be the 'city of gardens'? Did you realize as to how many gardens did you actually see on your way?

What I find most disgusting is the state of the people in Bangalore; especially those who come here with the dream of earning their livlihood and leave the shadows of their cruel past behind.
One can see a lot of low-class workers, busy in thier daily-jobs, everywhere in the city. Be it a fly-over (something that has made a big hue-and-cry in the city), restaurant, railways, construction, you will find many people working here. They jostle into the BMTC buses, in the morning, carrying their lunch in a small tifin-box, and then busying themselves in the work that will provide them their daily bread.

But there is another class of people who cannot afford this. Let's go back to the traffic-jam where you are stuck. Did you notice somebody standing outside your car, extending his/her hand, expecting a coin from you? Or did you see a small girl, doing acrobatics on the footpath, so that her physically-disabled mother can get somethng from you? Or was it an old man who was trying to sell you a packet of ear-buds for a meagre 5 rupees, which will mean something to him, if not to you?

Did you give them something? A small coin, a packet of biscuits, a banana, or similar thing? Or did you ignore him and drove away once the signal turned green, like me?

Journey To North India

Last month I had a chance to visit North India after a gap of two years. I was to attend my sister's wedding. It was 44 hours journey, including 40 hours by train, and 4 hours by bus, thereafter. As it was the month of February, I took enough warm cloths with me. I left Bangalore in only a T-shirt & was expecting a cold morning when I get down at Agra 2 days later. But it was not to be. I found myself sweating as I stepped out of the Agra Cantt. station, looking for an auto-rickshaw to take me to the nearest bus-stand. The journey from Agra to Etawah, my home-town was in a UPSRTC bus. There is a sharp contrast when you compare the bus to KSRTC buses. The bus was quite dirty. It looked like nobody has swept the floor for last one week. There were used water-bottles scattered around, along with groundnut peels. The bus was rickety and made a lot of noise. The journey was not that bad. After moving out of the city, the cool breeze took away my tiredness of the train journey, and I looked out of the bus window. This erupted nostalgic feeling in me. During my childhood I used to see the same scenery out there whenever I used to visit my paternal / maternal village. Those days I used to be very keen in traveling by train. Unfortunately, railway line was kilometers away from my village. I used to feel very sad about this. The last part of those journeys used to be terrible, as we used to travel in private buses, which will be overcrowded by default. Now, the same village was connected by a state highway, and better buses were available (even though I have not visited there for a decade now).

I reached my home in the afternoon. It was a different feeling. The place is a town, and the traffic is definitely different from the city of Bangalore. There is hardly noise and one can feel peaceful even on the road that leads to the railway-station. I had a quite, peaceful walk in the evening. I felt engrossed with peace.


Two days later, I had to get some material for the rituals that had to be performed for the marriage ceremony. I did not take the bike, as I prefer walking. It took me half-an hour to find the right shop. I told the shopkeeper man my requirements, and to my surprise, he gave me the material free of cost. He told that as the material is going to be used for the puja, I won't need a significant amount. And the meager amount that I needed can be given free of cost as it won't affect his business. I came back with the material without spending even a single rupee from my pocket. This was quite an opposite experience from the one I had in Bangalore a few weeks ago. I had shifted to a new house. I do not have any furniture, not even a chair. The house-owner noticed this, and he offered to give me a chair & a table. It was lying idle in his house. I thought that it will be good to have something like that, so I agreed. Immediately he told me the monthly charges that I will have to pay for the set.....!


The main ceremony was to be held in Patna. I went to Patna along with my family and relatives. It was another train journey of 9 hours. The weather was quite different from what I had expected. It was hot.! Thankfully we all were in AC coach.


As we all got down and reached the place where the ceremony was to take place, I realized my mistake of carrying all the warm cloths with me. There was no need for any of them. We were there for three days, and every night we used to switch on fan and sleep. Entire day the room AC had to be on. On the wedding day, I did not even put-on even once, the jacket that I had so lovingly bought in Bangalore to be wore during the ceremony. It would not have been out of place to have an ice-cream or a cool-drink. In fact, ice-cream was a part of the dessert served during the ceremony.....!


My sister went to her in-laws place, and I came back to my home town. It had become slightly hot, with mosquitoes now making there presence felt at night.


Soon it was time for me to leave. As I climbed back into the bus that will take me to Agra, I still thought of the weather, the mindset of the people, and my unused jacket......