Happiness is Contagious!!!

As I spend most of time traveling (No I don’t back pack through the country. I am talking about the minimum 3 hours that I spend commuting to and fro office), I decided I would maintain a travelogue. I realized very late that I notice some very weird things when I am traveling and they amuse me so much that documenting it seems like a very good idea.

First installment

Yesterday was my first day “After Merrill Lynch”. Early morning when I was getting ready the world seemed like a bleak place. I still couldn’t get over the fact that I wouldn’t be working with my then team. It had been sometime since I had traveled in bus and the typical mumbaiya “Dhaka Mukhi” of public transport was not something I was looking forward to. As I reached my bus stand, the one from where I would always take my 7:20am 382 to andheri and to my work, I wasn’t even sure if they still run the bus on the said route. Yes it had been just 4 months but for me it almost seemed like an eternity. So I reached the stop and after around 5 minutes I noticed some very familiar faces. The faces of people I used to travel with sometime back. There were smiles of recognition; there were the typical bright “good mornings” …. Amongst all the chatter and the questions of where I had disappeared for so many months, we boarded our beloved bus. I was told that the bus still was as irregular as before and that the driver still was a pain. All smiles I walked towards my much-loved seat, the third row from the driver-the window seat out of habit and Mr. Kamlesh (incidentally has been traveling to L&T in the same bus for last 14 years) showed me to my seat with this sunny smile. The fact that he remembered touched my heart.

I looked out the window…. The same old buildings… the roads so often traveled… everything was still the same. And I grinned… yes I actually grinned because I couldn’t believe my silliness. The emotional fool that I was I so resisted the idea of change forgetting what happened 4 months back, this project in ML was the change. Today I was back to my old life. And I was resisting the idea of my old life, old schedule, old habits… this is what I was used to and I couldn’t understand why I was apprehensive about that…

Happiness and hope and expectations running through my veins… I saw what it meant to move on… to let go of the fears…. And look forward to another bright morning of my long life… The most humbling moment of my life!!!

Sometimes incidents like this make you realize how true happiness lie within you and it comes from appreciating what you have right now. My life still has meaning and purpose and that everyday my life touches or is touched in so many positive ways…

Keep living and smiling!!!

The End of an Era!!!!

The End of an Era

It actually feels like that. Today is the last day for Team –Merrill Lynch. Yes we had a wonderful stint. Yes we are huge success. Yes Merrill Lynch says we are the best team they have ever worked with. Yes, we proved beyond doubt what a we can achieve if we put our heart and soul into it.

Amidst this entire success story, I am sad. I am sad I wouldn't get to work with my team any more. I am going to miss them a lot, and moving on "New Team", "New assignment" doesn't really hold any excitement right now.

I still remember how it started out. Bunch of individuals who haven't ever worked together were pushed into the company. The targets were high, the task seemed Herculean. I had my apprehension…lots of them actually. Anxiety when it came to the people I would be working with, the IT sector which was something I never wanted to associate myself with…. The list seemed endless. How we got through it so notably is still a mystery.

Five completely different individuals… I would miss the twinkle in Aparna's eyes-the naughtiest pair of eyes I have ever seen in my life… the silent understanding… the hourly signals… Never thought two pair of eyes could speak volumes. Ameet with his goofy sense of humor kept us in ripples through out the day. The coolest dude ever-Ameet Sheth. I would miss the serenity I feel every time I look at Abi. The ever smiling face and the intelligent mind behind it churning out data like a mad cap. He is the sweetest and nicest person ever and cannot believe we wouldn’t be working together. And Ruchi who I guess taught me how beautiful it is to be simple. Wish I can be as sportive as she is.

Yes it is an end of an era. May be there are much better things in store for all of us… May be there is…But today I just feel this heaviness in my heart. I crave for more time with them. Not just because it was fun. But also because they were my best learning grounds. I would miss our conversations which spanned from movies, music to politics. It motivated me to read more things because for the first time in my life I was amidst people who stimulated me intellectually.

I can talk about 100.000 reasons for why I would miss all of them. But most importantly because they gave me the best four months of my professional life….

Thanks all you guys and love you loadz.

Keep Smiling!!!!

Priya

An Eternal Search.....

Emptiness inside my heart and soul
Will have to start everything anew.
Should you mutely accept everything?
This is life after all….

Life is not fair, it never has been
And it goes on-previously unexplored journey.
Reminding you again and again
There is one more storm to be faced
One more battle to be won….

Some times reason for living is obscure
Answers to “why am I here?” may be incomprehensible
And yet those wonderful memories and hope for more
They might as well be your cure.

And may be once I realize,
That life is not peach
And it is better not to analyze it too much
That nothing I have done or will do is rehearsed.
I might end this search and be at peace.

The Sunscreen song!!!!

I just loved it the first time I read it. Thanks Praful for sharing it with me.

Article by Maria Schmich, set to music by Bazz Luhrmann.

I can write the history behind the speech here, but I think I will never be able to explain it the way Praful did!!

The Conversation:

Priya : am gonna put this sunshine thing on multiply.....whts the history?

Praful: its basically an article by Mary Schmich's. She was walking one morning on he beach thinking what to write then it came to her. She saw a lady tanning... she said i hope she's wearing sunscreen because I didn’t. And than she wrote this article as a grad. Speech. Went around the Internet as a grad speech MIT 99. Bazz Luhrmann read it. Bought the copyright from the newspaper. Hired an aussie actor and a singer for lead and background resp. and then made the song. This made to the billboard 100 and rumors has it that it was the only song to played back to back on request for hrs on radio stations across us.Eventually, Ms. Schmich expanded them into a 64-page book for Andrews McMeel Publishing, "Wear Sunscreen: A Primer for Real Life." But no one could have predicted the musical twist to an already twisted tale.

Enjoy!!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’97... wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be IT.

Scientists have proved the long-term benefits of sunscreen whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.

I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.

You are NOT as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself, either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance. Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.