What is life for?

I read somewhere : Toh kyaa jindagi sirf khwab poore karna ka naam hai ???

I got some ideas and thought of putting it down before it evaporates.
Life is all about
-- Creating dreams
-- Making it happen
-- Creating new dreams

If there is no dream in life, today is left to chance. Only dreams yet to be fulfilled tell us what to do today. So..... Have a lots of dreams and spend every day taking at least one step forward to fulfill them.

Breakthru' vs Breakdown

Someone said this statement to me and struck my mind:
"When you take some action, only two possibilities are there: Either you have a breakthrough or a breakdown".

There are few things that I told myself:
1. Wisdom is to welcome both of them equally warm.
2. If nothing is happening in life, perhaps I am not doing anything.
3. When there is a breakdown, it is an opportunity to have multiple breakthroughs.

Old vs new things !

As we move on in life, we pick up things that we like and start carrying them along. There will be a time when there will be no capacity to pick up any more. That's when we trade with losing one by dropping it and picking a better and new one. If we love the old ones so much that we can't drop them, then no possibility of picking up new things.

These things could be objects, knowledge, ideas, opinions, habits etc etc. Many of us dream of doing great things in life and yet only a few actually goes ahead and does it. But, we never bother to face the inquiry "why we are not able to do those great thing?" Reason is very simple, we are scared that we will be asked to drop one of those old things that we picked up sometime in life. So, we "CHOOSE" not to drop an old thing to pick up a new one. On the contrary, if I want to do something new/different, I will have to create some space by dropping an old thing.

Moral: The more easily we drop an old thing, the easier it becomes to pick up new and better things.

The Morning Sun !

I was at Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, King Koti for the concluding part of a training I was attending on Jun-17 evening. I was waiting for one of my friends to join and then one gentleman stopped. and asked me looking at my name tag, "what's the meaning of your name - Prabhat?" As usual, I gave the meaning as "morning". He didn't quite accept it and stopped for a while. He said a few things that shook me vigorously. Read on.

He said that "प्रभात" means something more. Pra-bhat : bhat means knowledge and pra means new. So it means, someone who is to bring new knowledge to the world. Prabhat is someone who is to bring new light of knowledge to the people in the world and make it lighted as the morning Sun does to every one.

He went one explaining what "bharat" means. bha means knwoledge and rat means in love. Bharat is a country where people are in love with knowledge. it is a country where people love to learn, learn and learn in life and bring new light to the world.

After hearing those words, I was totally zapped. I didn't know what to say. He went on patting me saying that he is jealous of me. Upon asking he mentioned that he didn't have this knowledge when he was young, and I have. He blessed me saying go ahead and show the light of knowledge to the world and make a new world.

So long, I was not able to find words to put it here. Today I woke up and I thought before I forget these words, I must put it here. Not only that, I am renaming this blog page as "The Morning Sun". I have a new vision for my life i.e. to live upto my name "Prabhat" !

Positive Affirmations

I get up in the morning and start saying aloud.. Good Morning Sumi (my wife), Love you. And the morning goes fantastic !

I have started this last week itself and started seeing beautiful results. We don't fight in the morning anymore and start the day with more energy. I think this is a change in my life.

Positive affirmations create lot of positive energy in life. One has to say aloud, feel it and express it too. It can help in making up relations, aligning oneself with vision and putting focussed effort on whatever we want to do.

It reminds me one statement from book, The Alchemist (not exact though):
"if one decides about the destiny, whole universe conspires to help you achieve it"

If I decide to make the morning beautiful, universe will definitely help me and the same for a happy life too. Let's decide to make this life a beautiful life and world, a beautiful place to live.

A Decade Passed!

Someone called up last week and congratulated me. When I asked, he said, "we completed 10 years since we left REC Warangal". A decade passed !!!


It is a decade passed since I completed B Tech and entered into real world. When I look back, there are many events and tons of changes took place. I tried to look for ones that make me stand out of the crowd:

* I have changed job only once and still with the second job for 7+ years.
* Being in IT for about 10 years, I never earned a foreign salary. Though, some allowances at times did come through.
* I jumped into social sector and got associated with the child development workshop, ISP. For last 3 years, I am enjoying explore new possibilities in this field.
* Started with a venture that is totally different from "IT" : A school for children, Ankur Rishikul Vidyalaya.
* I missed to attend marriage functions of all the RECW friends. I feel so bad about it.
* I haven't traveled for a visit to any new place in India (except the metros). I feel pathetic about it.
* I have a flat tummy yet !!!!!

Now, what do I want to achieve in next decade:
* Retire from IT!
* Have a progressing business : Both city and residential schools
* Visit at least 10 new places in India along with my better half.
* Take full family to Vaishnav Devi yatra.
* Ensure that I attend some kind of training every 3-4 months.
* Have couple of other business rolling. Ideas are welcome !
* Have a taste of farming.
* Have an average income of Rs 1 Crore/month. (Corrected after seeing the inflation numbers and some other factors)
* Maintain my flat tummy !!!!!


I will keep adding whenever I get some new idea. If you can throw some more possibilities, please do comment.

Jeet Jayenge Hum...... Meri Jung

I was feeling little down after seeing so many hurdles and downplays.
At the right time... got a message with this song. This kind of pumped in tons of energy and positive thoughts and I am ready to fight again. Thanks for the message, Nitin!

This week, i would sit back and look at all the tools I have available. What I need to do is device a creative solution to the issues one by one. First one is my "vision book". Let me start right away.


I shall post more about my findings. Hope this week puts lot of light on the future weeks. Wish me luck.

Jindagi....Imtehan leti hai !!!

On every road, every turn, every step.. Jindagi Imtehan leti hai !!!

Last couple of months, I have been feeling tested on every skill/strength I have : Patience, listening, creativity, Social skills, organizing.. even cleanliness !!! It seems to be increasing every day, every moment. I wonder, how many other areas will be tested and when will it subside.


Currently, if I count.. there are few projects in my life:
-- Professional work
-- ISP
-- Ankur Rishikul Vidyalaya
-- Family and personal life, of course.

I was feeling so good that professional work is in the right direction and right pace too. Suddenly, a storm of changes came and things are on the ground. I am wondering, how much time it will take again to build the same strength. I just hope that it takes less. But, the bigger question is, "it worth?" Again changes will come and things will be in pieces. I need to think something different here that will enhance resilience and help us be firm even during storms.

ISP is going good. I feel it is picking up the pace now. Limitation is that I have only one head and two hands. I require more heads and hands to increase the speed and widen the coverage.

ARV is our dream with a very strong vision.
"To create scientists with attitude of an artist and Artists with an ability of a scientist".

It started off in Jan-2008 amidst lot of uncertainties. Things progressed good in one month. But, last 4-5 weeks, I am getting a feel that something is wrong. Something is missing in our efforts.
-- Teachers are not staying.
-- We got good parents sending their children to ARV. Slowly, some of them are drifting away. I am happy about one thing that inflow of such good people is higher that outflow. Hopefully, these good people enhance the positive energy around us.
-- Few things working against eg. new unfavorable one-way routes.

Family life.. this one is testing my patience. I hope things settle fast here too.

What is keeping me going ahead is the vision with which I started and missions that I (Along with my wife, Sumita) set for ourselves. Let me see how much strength these "imtehans" have and how long these can sustain testing strength of my vision.

Empty Your Cup

The Learned Professor came to the house
of the Zen Master to ask to learn Zen.

"You are most welcome, " said the Master,
inviting the Learned Professor in for tea.

They sat on cushions facing each other.

Preparing to make tea, the Master set a pot of water
on the charcoal brazier on the floor in front of him,
while the Learned Professor began to tell of
all of the books he had read about Zen.

The water having boiled, the Master made tea
while the Learned Professor told of all the insights about Zen
he had gleaned from talking to other great scholars.

The tea made, the Learned Professor held up
his cup and continued to talk about Zen.

The Master poured tea into the Learned Professor's cup.
And he and poured...and poured...and poured,
until tea was spilling over the top of the cup
and cascading onto the floor.

"What are you doing?" cried the Learned Professor.
"The cup is full. No more will go in!"

"Your mind is like the cup,"said the Master.
"How can you expect to learn unless you first empty your cup?"

Chak-De!

Watched the movie "Chak-de" on Sunday.
I was thinking why didn't I watch it earlier.. such a fool I am.

A very rich movie - full of learnings if you go with an empty cup !


My take back from first viewing;
-- Winning doesn't require strength, instead it requires intent i.e. vision.
-- To win, team must put all efforts towards the intent first, then for the team members and then if chance is there for him/her-self.

And many more.. but I don't want to put it now itself.

My action plan:
1. All the teachers in the school (Ankur Rishikul) watch the movie together, before school re-opens after summer vacation.
2. Set up a Vision for Ankur Rishikul.
3. Have action plan for next 3 months set
4. Get set gooooooooo

Holi - means colors !!!

Holi - The festival of colors.

We celebrated Holi at Ankur Rishikul today with children - children of age group 1.5 to 2.5 years. It was full of fun.

Preparation started few days back only. First, we needed to get the play pool. it got over in one store. Then I had to bug another store to order for me and arrange it fast. Fortunately, he did it and I could get it to Rishikul. Then, we went to get some "Pichkari". We got some, though we didn't like them much. well, not many options. Now the turn comes to colors. We though of making colors with house hold items.
Yellow - Turmeric
Red - turmeric with lemon juice
We also thought of using Beetroot, green leaves etc for other colors.

Yellow : this was fine.
Red: when I added lemon drops, no color change. I was surprised to see that color didn't change even after adding few full lemons juice. These manufacturers really package fake items. Turmeric is definitely not the pure one and it has huge "ghapla". I am going to write to the manufacturer.

I thought, let's use only yellow color and enjoy. We filled water into the play pool. It took a while to fill even half of it. We also put lots of plastic balls into it. Behind the scenes, children were practicing using the "Pichkari". Then, they were allowed to the pool area and to enter into water.
-- Some entered directly and started playing.
-- Some were seeing from a distance.
-- Some were touching the water from outside only.
-- Some took more courage and finally entered into it.
-- Some were crying also.

Water all over, children throwing the balls out and parents running to catch the, and slipping on the wet floor, some throwing water on others using Pichkari.. it went on like this for about 1.5 hrs. Then, finally, two children not wanting to come out of the pool. It took quite an effort to bring them out of the pool.


It was fun, fun and fun. Finally, I used to pool water to wash my car .. ohh my car also played holi !

I am looking forward to have Holi again next year in Ankur Rishikul with more children, a bigger pool and more colors. it would be really great fun.

Wish everyone a very happy and fun-filled Holi. Enjoy with colors - safe colors.

cheers.

Start again !!!

Time is passing by so fast and so many learnings in life.
I gotta to start again to post my learnings everyday now. I am excited and motivated too. I am gonna keep my promise now. Every day, however small, I would post here.

Prabhat
19-Mar-2008