Point Return – It’s New again

Well, I am not writing about the Point Return initiative by D.V Sridharan. I am just using his initiatives name for my blog post with due respects. What I am trying to say is that the point is to return to Jan 1^st every year. Today being the last day of the great year 2009, my head is having a tailspin over the kind of activities I had done in the past one year. For me, new-year does not mean anything except that it gives me a reason to try something new. And of course, there will be a lot of learning for me as I pass the puzzles of times that I encounter in the 365 days of one more year’s life time. Surprisingly, year 2009 gave me some of the best times ever. I could get to do a lot of new things, I could work on my passion for certain things that wanted to pursue. Looks like in spite of many mistakes i have committed, I have lived the phrase of ‘being passionate’ this year.

Now the most sensitive part of life is my own life and my world. That everyone calls it personal. Even I do. There were a lot of break downs this year and also a lot of exciting times spent. As I said I could work on many things that I can call it as my passion. To name them, the list goes like this: time spent on Photography, time spent on attending music concerts and plays, time spent on adventure activities, time spent on public functions, more number of books bought, read and wrote a few reviews, quite a bit of poetry, more time spent on writing, time spent on meeting new people, joining guitar classes, time spent on social networking, tweeting and information sharing and spending time with my close friends and making new friends. So I have made use of my weekends very effectively. Not to forget, I have had many breakdowns and failures in the above list as well. One of them is I haven’t spent enough time with my parents and my little sister. One good time spent was when cousin gang went on a Bannerghatta trip. I was extensively travelling and could not concentrate on that. I regret to admit that. But I shall look forward to spend a good time with them the coming year.

I have had some lucky breaks in spite of the downturn with respect to my career. I have moved on to a new promising and challenging role. Oracle is keeping me busy enough during the weekdays and I am trying hard to meet the expectations of my seniors. Of course, I do not know how far they are satisfied with my performance. So, my stint at office is more of learning and spending my time more on the kind of activities that were totally new to me. There were a lot of break downs as I am still a beginner with respect to some of the critical business aspects. But I am lucky enough having survived without the pink slip thus far.

Now that I have three separate lanes in my life, one being the career which I already blah’d it out, the other two lanes are my personal life (no comments) and my social commitment - my NGO. Like every year, there were more failures than successes this year as well. There were more interactions with respect our project with many people, many organizations and many private sector companies. Some of them promised us good, some of them promised us to promise good, some of them failed to keep up their promise and some of them totally forgot what they promised us. Accepting this challenge, we are moving on and on. So every year will be the same as there is no end for challenges. As Narasim says, for every two steps of going forward, we have been going a step backward. But we gain one step at least and will keep trying our luck given the commitment and certain hope we have in our proposal.

Well, now that I have shared about all the three dimensions of my life, now I would like to list down the activities that I did in the past one year. This gives me a details on what I did most and how much did I spend? That led to my zero savings life. I may miss some of the activities in the list if I do not remember or if it is not very interesting.

Jan 5, 2009	Visit to Toyota Technical Training Institute, Bidadi to learn about their training programs.
Jan 10, 2009	Visit to Nettur Technical Training Foundation, Electronic City to learn about their training programs.
Feb 15, 2009	We filed our project proposal for Sankalp Awards. Our proposal did not get shortlisted.
Feb 22, 2009	After a long time, I delivered my promise to my dad by visiting my granny in a village called Budili, Hindupur district of AP.
March 5, 2009	My friend Sup got married. Attended his wedding party.
March 21, 2009	Visit to VGKK at BR Hills. This was both for the study and for the trek
April 5, 2009	Bought the Canon Sx10 camera and started my Photography times
April 22, 2009	Uploaded the Paradise Lost- A short documentary on Kandavara on web
April 23, 2009	I voted for NOBODY
April 30, 2009 - May 18, 2009	Mission Sarpass - We climbed up the Sarpass peak successfully during the YHAI National Himalayan Expedition
May 31, 2009	Participated in the Sun feast Run - 5km Maja run
June 6, 2009	Participated in the Silicon India Start-up event at Nimhans convention centre
June 12, 2009	Visited Pondicherry for 2 days to attend my friend's wedding
July 2, 2009	Attended the SHSF book release function at Royal Orchid and met with Rashmi Bansal the author of the book
July 26, 2009	Namitha's farewell at office
July 30, 2009	Got inspired by the book IIM to Ganjdundwara that inspired me to take up a big project
Aug 1, 2009	Friendship day moon light trek to Bilkal Rangaswamy betta
Aug 8, 2009	Moonlight trek to Savanadurga hillock
Aug 14,2009	Visited the Lalbagh flower show
Aug 15, 2009	Meruthi Parvatha trek with a thrilling story to end
Aug 23, 2009	Published 'My story with Ganesha' on my blog
Aug 30, 2009	Fun drive to Channapattana
Sep 5, 2009	Paid my tribute to all my teachers while travelling to Pune
Sep 6, 2009	Trek to Singad peak near Pune with Hari
Sep 9, 2009	Interesting and a moving meeting with a Sardarji in Pune
Sep 12, 2009	Trek and camping at Lohagad peak with Hari
Sep 18, 2009	My first (only one) photo feature published on Citizen Matters
Sep 18, 2009	Attended BIAF performances at Chowdaiah memorial hall. Photos published on Citizen Matters on 21st Sep
Sep 21, 2009	Attended Raghu Dixit's concert at Yuva Dussera in Mysore
Sep 27, 2009	Bannerghatta visit with cousins
Oct 9, 2009	Attended the Jazz concert by Germans at Chowdaiah memorial hall
Oct 11, 2009	Participated in the Cyclothon and had a thrilling experience
Oct 21, 2009	I got my guitar
Oct 24, 2009	Eye opening meeting and presentation at Rotary Club, Bengaluru
Oct 24, 2009	Participated in the Nike Run
Oct 29, 2009	State level YHAI Island expedition for 3 days
Nov 10, 2009	Bengaluru Raining photographs published on Citizen Matters
Nov 10, 2009	My first guitar class at Kaladhar music school
Nov 11, 2009	Adventurous visit to attend Doc’s wedding reception
Nov 15, 2009	Moving discussion with a Doctor who promised to serve the needy and a social entrepreneur who is doing brilliant work
Nov 20, 2009	Described about Beautiful Bengaluru
Nov 21, 2009	Visit to Unnati vocational training centre campus
Nov 26, 2009	4 days visit to Hampi, Badami, Aihole, Pattadkal and Tangadgi
Dec 5, 2009	Trek to Karighatta and Himavad Gopalaswamy Betta
Dec 13, 2009	Attended Raghu Dixit’s concert at Gnanajyothi audi
Dec 19, 2009	Attended the Carnatic vocal concert by Dr. Balamuralikrishna
Dec 19, 2009	Trek to Kuduremukha peak
Dec 25, 2009	Trip to Dandeli and experience at Milind's home stay

Wow! The list looks huge to me. Although I have not included many of my good friends’ weddings because there were many weddings this year and I attended only a few.

Times! Passion! Friends! Music! Adventure! Reading! Writing! Memories…Overwhelmed!

So, I am left with only one day. Today!

And again the point is to return to January 1^st and a new year of 2010. I am looking forward for the best time as I got during this year and enough courage to face the challenges that will come along my way.

I wish you and your family a wonderful and prosperous ‘New Year 2010’!

Srik

PS: This is my 50th post in this year :)

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Visioning Life!

For most of us, what we see is life… but for few others, what they cannot see is life! Strange isn’t it?

It all started with the reading on the recent developments of ‘Point return’ and an argument which i read from one of my friend's blog that read as “How many of us know Rakhi Sawant? and How many of us know Vandana Gopikumar and Vaishnavi Jayakumar?. The duo co-founded The Banyan, a trust that works with homeless and mentally ill women.”

Luckily I knew both of them and their great work for the cause. It is an inspiring story if you want to know about ‘The Banyan’. It all started with the objective of helping one woman because there were no organizations that were ready to help that one woman. These two great hearts did it and they are doing it now in a bigger scale in Chennai. So it was for one life, these two accepted their life as a service for other lives. They chose their lives and it did not come to them?

And since I was the regular follower of the goodnewsindia.com which is managed single handedly by D V Sridharan, I was also following his new initiative of Point Return. The point is to return – is what he is trying to achieve. It is inspiring to read the developments and the challenges that are being faced by him in developing the agricultural land he is working on. And he is working alone. His primary objective is to restore a tiny corner of abandoned India into a sustainable resource for water, energy, food and cash. The first step he is working is on a 15 acre land which is located 100 km from Chennai. Readers of this post may want to visit these two websites for more details and get inspired. So Sridharan could chose his life?

As I was working tight with my busy schedule worrying about a lot of things which I did not wanted to but I was forced to, I got a call from one of my mentor. The whole discussion was good in terms of discussing about what actually is the driving factor for us to do something different. Also he used the term “electrifies” which was appropriate at that moment as we all are tired of routine work and to get the motivation, something should really electrify us. He was enquiring about our great Himalayan trip and we ended up with an objective to dedicate our lives to the Nature. I always get inspired to talk to him because he is the inspiring factor in my life to do something different as he is doing extraordinary things and achieving his goals one by one being physically challenged. I salute his spirits and I am sure he will do whatever he wants to do for the society.

My conversation with my mentor, the latest updates on point return, and the Banyan made me think a lot and gave me enough kick for the whole day. As I was thinking I did even share my thoughts with few of my good friends and I am sure even they would’ve thought about it in the same way. The thought which was lingering in my mind was do we have enough options to chose in life? Or are we taking the life the way it comes to us?

Well… I have the question unanswered yet. While this thought was lingering in my mind, I got to know that one of my good friend’s dad was no more and she was taken aback by the whole process. The one statement which came from her made me think a lot again was, she said “Life is not the same anymore”. So again my question was “Do you have any other choice?”

To add to the same, if that was the case, during our Himalayan trip, because of the Nature’s play, two people lost their lives. Did they have any choice? Having all the other team members with them they could not come out of what they encountered.

So life is to be taken the way it comes? Today morning while I was travelling to my office, one handsome gentleman got in to the bus at the residency road stop. I did not look at him properly as I was interestingly reading my economic times. But after a few seconds I heard a loud noise and as I looked at it, it was the stick of that gentleman. Yes! He was blind and he was struggling to get on to the seat. I was observing him as he got onto the seat and opened his physically challenged bus pass and with the great difficulty he showed that to the bus conductor. After settling down on the seat, he took out his comb and started combing his hair and cleaned his face with his hand key. He was comfortably sitting and listening to the FM in the bus. But I started feeling uncomfortable looking at the way he got ready, combed his hair just to make sure that he looks good to others. He must be around the age of 25-28 and he looked like any other handsome professional. So that is his life. Whether he chose to be that way or he just accepted the way it came to him. But hats-off to him for his brave act of moving around in the city of Bengaluru without any fear and like a normal human being.

That’s when I thought, for us, what we see is life and for him, what he cannot see is life. I realized that he can see what we cannot see and we cannot see what he can see. It is not about just seeing, it is visioning life. Sometimes I get nightmares thinking about my mom and her difficulties. But I have accepted it as she has accepted it the way it came to her. I just wish her to see my face at least once. But I know, she is seeing me every day and she has the vision for me and my life which is more than the sight.

Having accepting the life the way it comes to you, you tend to vision yourself around what you see or what you cannot see. Now to decide whether we are lucky having got to see things or unlucky having got to see things which we did not want to see is again a vision around us. Envisioning the hard facts around us and the plenty of opportunities for us to work and make the society livable is the biggest challenge again. We can say we may not be lucky because we are seeing and encountering such hard facts on a daily basis but we are lucky because some of us have chosen to work with the hard facts which can make a difference.

Now again my question to you is… how do you envision your life? Do you have options to chose? Or take it the way it comes to you? And either ways, what is the difference that you can make?

Srik

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