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“I am so unambitious,” my senior from MDI Gurgaon, whom I have known from the past 5 years said this to me last night over a phone-call. She is one of the smartest women I know, someone who has navigated through multiple job roles to land a senior brand manager role- something she really enjoyed doing. In short, I know people from the same college who would kill to take a role like that. But she is not happy doing what she is doing, and I understand the same being the reason behind her usage of the word unambitious for herself. This is not the first time I have heard women use this word. My senior colleague at the workplace would often say the same thing for her. And then the same words did come from another senior I know, and then from a friend, and finally from my own mouth. These are women from colleges like IMT Ghaziabad, IIM B, IIM C. The names of the colleges are important because it is no mean feat to traverse the journey to reach such colleges – study for CAT, appear for CA...

A ll these quotes are from the book Illusions : Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach. They all speak about changing your mindset, your perception and hence, your reality and life. The truth is that we can choose to suffer or to thrive. Like they say, pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. What would you choose? 1. If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do have a problem. 2. Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours. 3. You will wonder why some people are unhappy. They are unhappy because they have chosen to be unhappy, and, Richard, that is all right! 4. We cannot die, we cannot hurt ourselves any more than illusions on the screen can be hurt. But we can believe we're hurt, in whatever agonizing detail we want. We can believe we're victims, killed and killing, shuddered around by good luck and bad luck. 5. If you really want to remove a cloud from your life, you do not make a big production out of it, you just ...

Related Post - Atrocity in a Metro City - Hyderabad   I haven’t had a decent cup of tea in a long time – the kind that refreshes you within seconds. Bhubaneswar has no dearth of tea stalls that do not shy in putting enough milk in the cup. However, the hot weather doesn’t allow one to drink as many cups of tea as one would have while living in Guwahati. After the third cup of the day, I feel nauseas. And when tea isn’t there to sweep you off your worries, everything else starts bothering you. When I first landed in the city last year in September I was impressed by how the cabs arrive just minutes after you’ve booked one, how the roads are free of potholes in the major parts of the city, how the highway helps me travel anywhere in twenty minutes even when I live a little outside of the main city. Perceptions do not take long to change and I am now often reminded of the quote in Sanskrit that says दूरस्थाः पर्वताः रम्याः – the hills look lovely but only from a ...

He slicks his dark black hair back with his fingers. Outside, it was broad daylight, offering his dark brown eyes a view of the western part of the city. The neighboring tall buildings remind him he is on the 22 nd floor of his workplace. He finishes off the remnants of his black coffee, already cold by now. The half-smoked cigarette burns out on the ashtray. He pulls the ropes of his French window and his cabin is no longer reminded of the world outside.  He turns his swivel chair with the support of his desk to face a laptop in front of him that wastes no time in taking him to another world altogether. The white striped shirt he is wearing with his dark grey tie match the colors on the back of his laptop that flaunt the initials “S. R.”. * An unexpected knock on her door wakes Sheena up from her siesta. She reaches for the yellow dupatta lying carelessly on the other side of the bed, as if it was equally tired from the previous day’s work. She wears the dupatta aro...

So that was it, Stepping on broken pieces of glass, bare feet till your toes too bleed, Splinters that pierce the skin, that flow within you like blood, never to be found again... Where darkness ended, another night began... And that was the way things were for them When they lived in different cities... Five years later when they were united They expected the world to turn all rosy, The pain to go away And happiness to stay. So when they met, they made promises to keep. To live in the same city. But that was the way things were in that city. They now live in different families

Exactly a year ago, I was stranded all alone on the highway of Kharghar​, devoid of people, with the cell phone on my hand losing its marbles just when they were needed the most. Two men and a flock of goats were the only living beings to be seen on the road, if I do not take in account the grass that lost its greenery to the dirt of the vehicles that pass by, probably years ago. I went to one of the two men - the one whose clothes were less disheveled than the other, but disheveled nonetheless and as dirty as the grass I stepped upon. He combed his dark, oiled hair with his long and thin fingers as I approached him. I ask him in a polite tone, hiding the desperateness inside me," Bhaiya, aapke paas mobile phone hoga? Ek call karna tha". He shakes his head and I almost lose all my hopes on making a call to my friend. He says, "Phone nahi hai. Par mere tab se call ho sakta hai, Chalega?"