This Journey Called Life (Part 1)

A very HAPPY NEW YEAR, guys! May this year of the horse treat you with a lot of affection and care!

So, I have been away for a while now, trying to make a mark in my professional life. Some great strides happening there and Bangalore has welcomed me with a rather lavish sprinkling of love, luck and fun :) Here's something that I think of every time I take my EH-8843 for a long ride. Hope you enjoy reading it. Show me the thumbs-up if you want to see the second part too :)

You know how everybody from your father to your English teacher in school to that know-all Professor in college always said ‘Kid, Life’s a Journey?’ Well, guess what! They are not wrong! I was just thinking about my time in school and college (which seem like eons ago) and realised to my amazement how we brush aside so much that we learn for free. I mean, something that we did not enrol for…  Something that was just passed on in a matter-of-fact way without much emphasis on its importance…. Something that… errr.. You get the point, don’t you?


A couple of months ago, I wrote this poem about how the strain of two people in love can be likened to the situation where one is looking to cross the road and move to a place of safety. I realise now that there is much more to learn from the road! It has important lessons for the bright mind that has the tenacity to absorb and come to terms with simple truths of life.

1.      Gear up for the ride.

Remember how it was when your college group set out to conquer the road to Ooty on bikes and being a novice at riding, you couldn’t be more excited? In all your euphoria, you did not really think the journey through, did you? Given a chance now, wouldn’t you do it differently? By the time you flagged off your third or fourth long distance ride, did you not know what to carry and what to wear?

Life, in general is the same! You need to buck up. Be prepared. Have the right armour on so that you are ready for it when the battle is on. Preparation is the key. A couple of times, you force it upon yourself and later, it just becomes a habit; the armour becomes a part of your body. If the unforeseen happens, well you did your bit to prevent it. So fret not!

2.      It’s gonna be a Long Journey.

Long rides are not easy, especially if you are doing it without a significant break! The hard-core bikers will agree with me on this. It definitely is back-breaking and butt-numbing. But the ones who survive these will quite easily finish the shorter rides with greater ease. Also, you find that the tougher ones feel more rewarding in the end because you challenged yourself to do it.

The journey of life is not very different too. The ‘successful’ people you see in your fields have all worked that extra mile to get noticed and clamp their flags in the sands of time. Hardships come and go but the ones who defeat them remain!

3.      Ask for directions.

If you are a regular at adventurous rides where you take off without having a clear idea about the route or the destination, your friendly Google Maps for help. No network? Physical maps, then! But the best bet is a local who obviously knows much more than you do! So, when in a lurch, you turn to a person who is an expert, right?

Why do you think life in general is any different? This motto in life is applicable at every step. If you are lost, there's no reason why you should not ask the person you trust, to show you the path. Remember, the key here is to ask someone whose advice you will not regret taking! So, be wise. 

To be continued...

“TRUTH BE TOLD”

Writing something and actually finishing it in one go after a looooong time! When I picture this is my head, it looks like this post is going to be quite small. It is not one of those fictional pieces. It is purely drawn out of my own life and hence has sufficient historical data to be 100% true. But also be warned that what I am going to pen down here might seem too preachy for your comfort. I can definitely understand why that would be so. It is quite hard to fathom if you have not experienced it. In that case you might just want to read this like a story and close the window!

Remember how your Moral Science teacher always told you to speak the truth and nothing but the truth? Years later, the Moral Science lessons turned into ‘Ethics and Values in Business’ with slight additions here and there and case studies about the biggest firms biting the dust, instead of the Jataka Tales. But most of us failed to see that in fact, these two courses (if you wish to take them on face value) emboldened the same thing – Stay On Truth’s Side!

Well, crazy things happen in life. Some situations make you feel like you are being pressed against the wall by a boulder, hit on the head by a hammer and punched in the heart by a sharp spear – all at once. I am sure at some point in time all of us have felt it! The easiest way out would be to make it all stop with one lie – the lie that would haunt us in the months and years to come but would liberate us momentarily from all the pain and suffering. But little do you realise that once freed from all of this, you step into a deep pit and there’s no climbing up again; the constant nagging that you would be subjected to post lying would definitely be unbearable (Courtesy: Personal Experience). It is good to sometimes let the ‘Gandhian’ side of you dominate, give you the courage to get the truth out in the open and make you see the difference. When the other person sees that you have said something that is unacceptable but is the truth, he might hate you, might not even want to see you but in the end when rage gives way to calmness, he would realise that it would have hurt more to get the truth from somewhere/ someone else. And when he realises that it took you a lot to tell him what you did, he would come back and tell you that he respects you more now! (Courtesy: Personal Experience)

So folks, I have been on either sides of the fence. Not ashamed to announce that I have been on the other end of truth. To save my skin I have lied at times. After all, ‘I’m only a human, I’m just a child’. But when I sit here as a spectator of my own life and compare the two scenes, it was easier to be on Truth’s Side like my moral science teacher told me! No matter how difficult it seems, somehow, just somehow, it makes more sense!