Promise

Not the usual kind of topics that I generally write about but one that certainly got my attention like lightening out of the blue..

So this past week a friend was in town and we were just chilling and hanging out at our usual college adda and started talking about random stuff. It was during all this non sense talk that he mentioned or rather asked me something that blew my mind. Something  that I secretly thought about but never spoke because I was afraid that I might be wrong, and that I think was my mistake. So I'm going to share what he asked me sitting on a railway platform having the most silliest and stupid talks that we have....  

Him : "Okay tell me, Does a promise really exists??"
Me: " Meaning???"
Him : Well you know a promise, a promise to someone..does it really exists??, if yes then whats the duration and validity??
Me: (trying to mock him) its not a recharge voucher that'll have a duration , you know "best before.." its not a coupon that has validity...a promise is a promise.

Although my reply made his questions stop but the both of us weren't very pleased and I was soon going to find out why,

what he went on to tell me about certain common friends was.....(Hint : Friends with Benefits ) well that'll take another post to reveal but again lets focus on the current one ;)

So later that same evening I receive a text from him, He is surely addicted to texting and sends out the longest of texts that any of my  friends send me and the content of which are the reason of writing this post.


So here is the exact contents of the text that he sent me:

"Does a promise really exist?? if yes then whats the duration and validity??
do all the promises have same impact, or it varies across different promises?
Is promise based on the person to whom we are promising as to how important that person is so that we maintain our promise??
If we break the promise will the person on whom we promise die?? "

 The text goes longer but these are the crucial points that he raised. And he got me thinking.
I'll answer those with what are my thoughts about them..

Q : Does a promise really exist?? If yes then whats the duration and validity??
Well it certainly does exists and over time the meaning and usage has changed.
A promise isn't one which has to be explicitly told, according to me a promise is much more than that.
As kids we were very careful about our promises, never gave one easily but if we did made sure be backed it up 100%. And here is where i feel things changed, as we grew we lost out on all these wonderful virtues..and as we continue growing up we are still losing them.

A promise in it's most simple meaning has the duration till time you actually do an act as promised or fulfill something as promised and that holds good for its validity as well, meaning if i said to a friend that whenever he/she needs me i'll try my best to be there, that means it valid throughout and not  like a one-use-validity coupon.

Q: Do all promises have the same impact, or it varies across different promises??I'm afraid but the answer to the question is a sad YES, at least in these times it is. Promises have different impact. I think certain promises have a huge impact in our life and certain others don't.

Q : Is promise based on the person to whom we are promising as to how important that person is so that we maintain our promise?
 As much as I want to think otherwise but the fact is that it is the case. A promise suddenly becomes more important if the person to whom it was made is important. C'mon we all do it, promise made to friends to meet on birthday is less important than promise made to girlfriend to spend the day with her. In our head we try to reason we try to fool ourselves saying "I tried my level best...but had to choose.."

So YES the person to whom a promise is made makes the promise that much more important.


Q: If we break the promise will the person on whom we promise die?
This answer comes from a lot of experience..NO, no that person on whom you've promised won't die but surely I'll tell you two things will happen: a) If the promise stand broken, then both you and the person to whom you promised will start losing respect for the one you had promise on. b) the value of your own words will be lost.


As I write this post more of such profound thought comes to me..the kind of thoughts that only someone thinking so deeply about them can or maybe Calivn :P

Here's a honest request...Never make a promise that you don't intend on keeping, but once you do never ever break them. You'll have that persons respect as well mine.

And in these troubled times there are these virtues that we should treasure.
Honesty,
Integrity,
Valor,

No these are not things that King Arthur would appreciate but if times have truly changed then I wish I was sent to that era were these mattered more than money, religion et cetera.

"And Such should be life."

This & That

It's been quite a while that I've updated by blog with a post, and very honestly I'm not very proud of the fact either it's just that life happened and I got or rather am still getting drifted along with it.

Some things are hard to digest!!

It's been so long and I've had some really great experiences that has touched me in ways that i can't even describe.

It's hard for me to digest that i'm growing up, that suddenly i'm expected to Act my age. Well i dont want to!!

Is it just me or has anyone else also felt that boy here i am , i know i can do so much but alas all i can do is only this, that feeling of not being useless but rather usedless!!. We all have our expectations from life, some want money, some want fame and very honestly i'm happy being who i am but still there is this void that seems to take over me when ever i sit and start to think about life and how it has turned out for me.

I've always believed and continue to do so that there are only two things that have the true power to corrupt a soul: Money and religion, and today I'd like to talk about the first one (second wala lets talk about it later on) Its a little different then the usual topics that i talk about but hey! i guess I am growing up!!

Economics was among my most favorite subjects in school. It's one of those subjects where having the right teacher makes all the difference, and i had the best one and probably this is the reason that i still like it.

So automatically any economics related news draws my attention.

And sadly due one or the other reasons haven't really been able to learn and know more about it, but some recent news has in a way re-kindled my fire and hunger for it.

LIBOR

For the ones who still live in the stone age, it stands for London Inter Bank Offered Rate. Basically its the rate at which 20 of the worlds biggest banks are ready to buy a certain foreign currency also referred to as Major Currency. Now i'll explain in brief how it works and then go on with the discussion.

So everyday at 11 a.m in the morning these top 20 banks send their quote (rate) to buy a currency to BBA (British Bankers Association). The BBA on their part remove the top 20% and bottom 20% of the rates given by the bank so that the effect of the extremes can be reduced ( remember mean, median, mode?? Shame if you don't) and then an Average in taken of the remaining. The resultant rate my friends becomes the LIBOR rate. 

Now the reason why i've mentioned the Libor rate is because of the disturbing news i hear happening in the west.

Apparently Barcleys   Bank is in the eye of the storm for allegedly rigging the LIBOR rate. Unconfirmed news tell me that they have been slapped a fine of $450 million ( that figure tells you how serious the whole jhol is). So a rate has been rigged big deal you may say but the consequences of this is giong to blow your mind. Analysts have arived at a figure between $450-$800 Trillion-- yes there's no typo error you read that right it T-rillion. You see LIBOR is the rate on which most of these really big floating loans are given and thus it means that all those transactions have actually been wrong.

Even as a kid studying economics I always thought that why in the first place are we using such a rate which as opposed to say a Government bond rate ( which btw makes more sense) as it is set by the market forces (demand & supply) and with the little insight that i have I've zeroed in on two things as the probable cause of this :

1) No scope for validation : See when Bank A says I'm ready to buy XXX amount at say YYYY rate there is hardly any validation as no actual transaction backs this and hence the banks can actually under quote or over. and hence lead to a different rate altogether.

2) Herd Mentality : It's interesting that the Banks still follow the LIBOR rate, it's a dinosaur if you ask me. but because of the influence that London has on the international market and well frankly cause a few of the banks are following it the rest tend to follow suit.

I think in the end it an Honor Business.

Basically if you can't be trusted for your word, never can you be tested with my money.

As I conclude this post I hear of the whole HSBC thing that's surfacing, apparently Money Laundering and Terrorism financing are the two new jhols that this one has ended up doing. more on that maybe once i get time to dig deeper. 

Anyways that was that, now  we talk about me experience.

See a lot has happened since my last post. People have left me only to be replaced by news ones, and still some continue to leave.

I've started to believe that when people say that you need to grow up what they really mean is be ready for heart breaks :(

I mean really we replace the thing that brought us thrills with things that actually are very superficial.

I think at a very broad level We are losing the beauty and grace that our civilization had. I mean look at it, more crimes, more corruption, more deaths, more disparity between the rich and the poor.

And I personally think there is no one solution and that a multiple attack strategy is the best solution we have.

Some of these solutions could be :
1) Education
2) Strong Values

3) Lead by example

4) Fear of Punishment

5) Awareness

Now I'd like to discuss each of these solutions separately has it would be wrong that when it comes to finding a solution for my country I find an easy way out and not discuss it at length.

So untill next time i come back to post something here. Think about those points and how truly they can bring about the change we want.

Be the Change that you want to see in the world.

  P.S : To the Few who read my blog, Thank you :) its the fear of letting you down that i keep coming back here to write. :) Thanks and much love.

 

It pays to listen!!

We are all familiar with the line, " Mirror Mirror on the wall, who's the most beautiful of'em all"
No I'm not gonna talk about the newspaper or how it sensationalizes every bit of news it can find.

I see this as a metaphor for almost everything in life.

Everyday we see ourselves through this mirror which lies..
I mean go ahead ask yourself am i really good at cricket or cooking or anything that you do and consider yourself good at? most will answer yes but is it really the case,(a few shall feel the urge to lie to themselves and other by claiming "I'm not that bad at batting or bowling or whatever)

The point I'm trying to make here is that we live in an environment where this narrow look at ourselves is nothing but an illusion of what we think we are, we are coded in a way that makes it very difficult for us to truly see ourselves, in fact almost next to impossible.

Therefore we must always value those few who challenge our own perception about ourselves and try to make us see the REAL us.

I think critics are the most wrongly judged people in this world, I mean, sure today we give the status of a critic very easily but the few who truly are and understand and perform the roles, responsibility and duties of being a critic, are people who we should really praise and encourage. (Suddenly reading back this last line, it sounds like a principle of management answer doesn't it ).

We all hate to believe it but it's true, we all live in our own little bubble where, from our point of view everything is hunky-dory and any hardship or trouble is like GOD taking a revenge.

Now some of you might think I'm asking you to change or live your life according to somebody else, let me tell you NO, I'm not asking you to do anything even remotely close to that, all I'm trying to say is every once in a while one should listen to his/her critic in life, and by critic I mean anyone right from your friends,  parents, siblings. And I think I even know the reason why "others" seem better with their judgement and understanding about our problem, to put it very straight forward , the fact that it's not their problem makes it easier and helps them to be more practical and more balanced about it and that's why it pays to listen to your critic. To end I would quote what a friend had put up as her status in facebook some time back. ( Ironical how facebook suddenly has all the answers).

"I just realized that everyone is someone's counselor in life."

The World is not enough

Apart from being the title of a Bond movie, it's also today the title of my post signifying that which has been running on my mind.

The world is truly not enough, now more than ever i understand why being at peace with oneself and being content are far more important than being the fastest or the smartest. 

A friend (before she threw me out of her life) told me a true life incident that happened with her on her birthday and the strange thing is that it's been on my mind since the day she told me about it. This really happened.

"So on my birthday, in the morning I was with my family going to the temple when due to traffic we were stuck at a signal.

Now honestly all day it was on my mind that although it's my birthday and all but something was amiss..i felt sad and i wasn't really happy..friends had come over the previous day itself for the celebration and we had a great time but somehow somewhere something was lacking..i couldn't place a finger on it.. it was when all this was running on my mind that i saw a kid..very small probably he wouldn't  even be in class 2 or 3 if he ever did go to school.but here he was cleaning the windscreen of our car with those little hands and when he came to ask my jiju for some money in return of his work i saw his condition and then it hit me : here is someone probably who should be in a school but no life has been so cruel to him that he has to stand in the hot sun all day at the traffic junction cleaning cars so that maybe just maybe he'll have his full meals for that day and then i realized WE, the privileged class who have a roof over our head, meals readily available whenever we are hungry have grown to cribbing about almost everything. We have forgotten to appreciate that which we have. and then suddenly i felt happy here was i with my Di n jiju on one of my special days...what more could i have asked for"

Now coming to the point i wanted to raise with this story was that she was telling me all this when i had called her after what was a very difficult day for me at work and just wanted to get it off my chest and she started narrating this story to me..i was stunned "Damn man is it really true that i'm a cribber i mean was i forgetting that others too had problems and everyone deals with their own wagon full of it..isn't it the whole way this life thing works out..every man for himself..

Coming back to the strangeness of the title for this post, the world is truly not enough, I'm in a better position in life than maybe a billion other people but am i happy?? does the comforts that i have in any way make me more happy or are they just turning me more lazy..I avoid taking the local these days, the same locals that were nothing less than an adventure for me when i was in college..are we evolving towards our own end..

As my struggle with myself continues and i try to find the ultimate truth i'll keep coming back here trying to give words to my thoughts..for me and for you!!!

The Big Bad World!!

I'm LOST.
Even before I start with this post let me honestly tell you that right now where I stand, at the crossroads of life, I'm lost.

I always thought I had it all figured in life, always thought I had a game plan but apparently I was a fool and maybe too naive to understand the worldly ways...

The year 2012 is already turning out to be shit. 

I've never been this troubled, having the worst time ever. The very fact that i came back to writing my blogs is the testament that i need help.

Now i knew things were going to get tough but never considered the impact they'll have on me...I always joked that the day my luck runs out on me, I'm going to fall flat on my face and I fear the time has come.

Been going through a lot lately both at the work front and on the personal, I thought I'll never be effected by all this but alas I am.

I am somebody for whom friends are very important and lately this part of me is really giving me sleepless nights.

Till date I've been called by a lot of names, abused but never did it hurt the way it hurts right now. Now i'm not what a mother would describe as a textbook definition of a suitable or a good boy, but i'm not and i repeat not a BAD person, I've done my fair share of bad things but i'm sure i don't deserve what i'm facing now...

Or maybe life isn't always a party, everyone has to face its ups n downs..(no wonder i never liked the roller coaster ride)

For those who have seen my transition from the rebel in school to somebody who's opinion mattered, will surely agree I TIRED, and i think i gave and continue to give my best shot.

I'm at an-all-time low in my life and a few people are making it a whole lot difficult for me. I just hope even this phase of my life changes, I desperately need my mojo back...Lady Luck don't ditch me now.

I just hope people see the real me, I feel i'm constantly being judged maybe I'm thinking too much into it but i can't help it.

And when somebody for whom you care so much calls you a "bad person", it hurts it really really hurts.. 

This post is more of my frustration coming out and a desperate attempt to avoid going into a depression.

God help me. I need you more than ever. I need somebody to have the faith in me, to trust me.

finishing off by just wishing that things improve!