The Little Things In Life

“Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom”, said Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose while campaigning our country's freedom movement. Somewhere, a few decades down the line, reading it to her class, a teacher pondered, “Give me young minds, and I shall turn the nation around.” Powerful words by a powerful person. It might sound like a tall claim to make, way too far-fetched even, but anyone who has been a teacher, anyone who has ever been influenced by a teacher knows and understands it to be true. It is huge and impactful, and, in no way, an overstatement. PC: WeAreTeachers on Facebook This idea became clearer to me when I myself got a chance to assume the most respectable, the most honourable profession in the world. The love, respect and admiration that I have seen in the eyes of my children (beautiful, lovely children that I doted on, and still do) strongly reinforced in me the idea that I had the power to influence and effect change.  There is a lot a teacher...

Remember the first time you came across the brand Paper Boats? I was first introduced to the brand by an endearing and engaging video I received on WhatsApp featuring a bunch of young adults who refused to let the child in them die. A few more of such videos followed, and then a few months down the line, we were neatly introduced to the very economically priced, interestingly designed tetra packed flavoured soft drinks. I am no marketing professional, but being a fairly intelligent, generally observant kind of a person, I understand this to be an excellent marketing strategy. Their marketing is primarily through the social media and they evoke one of the most beautiful emotions in the world – nostalgia, and you can never go wrong with it. The simple joys of our precious childhood are some of the best things we love to reminisce about – our school, our school friends, the games we played, and, as the company has most beautifully named and captioned its brand, making paper boats an...

It was a fine Sunday afternoon with the rain pouring outside. I heard the sounds but was too busy watching Sherlock to pay any heed to it. Thankfully, the show came to an end before the rains did and I then turned my attention to the brimming joy of nature. First, I let the sound of rain sink deep into my ears and into my soul, and then I saw the pouring of waters, the swaying of leaves and the green of the grass in my mind’s eye. As I was basking in the sweetness of my imagination, I asked myselves how long it has been since I got soaked wet in the rains. An image instantly flashed before me - pouring rains, a small bunch of children (toddlers and teenagers alike) splashing and jumping, a massive thunder from the heavens above, followed by an old man glowering down on his grandchildren and rushing them inside the house. It was June 2005, Kerala. We, cousins, had ventured out of the house to indulge ourselves in the tantalizing rains while our grandpa watched on from the veranda...

Ideas don’t come out fully formed. They only become clear as you work on them. You just have to get started. If I had to understand everything about connecting people before I began, I never would have started Facebook. But this idea was so clear to us — that all people want to connect. So we just kept moving forward, day by day. — Mark Zuckerberg in his Commencement Address at Harvard in May 2017 When you start something you never know how it is going to end. But you have to start somewhere and then just keep going forward – one day at a time. You have an idea within you and a vision before you. You just need to keep working towards it, learning new things as you go along and improvising with every new step you take. Fear of falling cannot keep you from walking. If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever. But that’s not the point of having a ship. Ships are meant for sailing, for venturing out into the open sea and bracing ...

A poem I find really inspiring.. “Little by little,” an acorn said, As it slowly sank in its mossy bed, “I am improving every day, Hidden deep in the earth away.” Little by little, each day it grew; Little by little, it sipped the dew; Downward it sent out a thread-like root; Up in the air sprung a tiny shoot.

1.     It is what it is. Not good, not bad. It is what it is. (John Watson, BBC Sherlock) 2.    It is a choice between what is right and what is easy. (Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter) 3.    There is a stubbornness about me that can never bear to be frightened. My courage rises at every attempt to intimidate me. (Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice)

There was a time when people used long sentences and big words to sound important (if you have read  Pride and Prejudice or  Sherlock Holmes , you will know what I mean). But, today in a world where food is fast and coffee is instant, you really don’t have time for long lectures and endless discourses. In the world of media and internet too, our attention span is too short and our patience is too little to hold on to lengthy, extensive write ups/ videos/ blogs. I personally don’t read the first paragraphs of any article that I read on the internet. It’s just an introduction, slowly trying to sweep in to the main point, and some of them just beat about the bush. I just skip to the main points and skim through the text looking for words that sum up the whole point. So the key mantra in today’s high-speed internet era is: Come, make your point and leave.

One fine afternoon, on a day off from work, I was standing by my window looking outside. And then, just like that, in that moment of stillness I realized just how beautiful the soft winter sun felt in the mildness of the genle breeze blowing in my face. I just stood there taking it all in and letting it sweep through me.  It was in that moment that I realized that in the fast pace of life, I had forgotten to slow down and appreciate the beauty of little things in life. So I decided to take some time off for myself, simply to stare at the sunlight, to take in the smell of the soil and to listen to the birds chirping. No thoughts crossed my mind. No words escaped lips. All was silence, all was calm, and then the peace of nature slowly seeped through my soul. Sometimes, that’s how things work - so simple and right there in front of our eyes and yet we don’t see it. I was awe-struck by the stillness of nature and by the depth of its calmness. God has made all things so simple a...