Yaariyan – A 24 day Marathon Fiction

Five close friends parted ways post graduation and proceeded towards their dreams. Four years have passed and they are surviving – managing responsibilities, but not living. A group trip gets them present to their dreams and to each other – Will they take the plunge?

Read on!!!

Presenting – Yaariyan – a 24 day marathon fiction.

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Part One

1. Arpit sends a message
2. Niket meets a suitable girl
3. Madhu prepares for his weekend workshop
4. Message reaches Seattle
5. Lets catch up
6. A trek to Kashmir
7. The gang breaks up
8. Madhu calls Abhi
9. Will Arpit agree?
10. Finalising the dates

Part Two

1. Registering for Kashmir Great Lakes trek
2. And they bid farewell
3. Swami applies for leave
4. Madhu prepares a fitness regime
5. Niket’s peppiness doesn’t cut him any slack
6. Shopping for trekking gear
7. Arpit treks Mt Kalsubai
8. Abhinav’s surprise visit to Jaipur
9. Swami boards a flight to Srinagar
10. On their way to Srinagar

Part Three

1. Will Abhinav consider his feelings?
2. Rendezvous at belt no. 3
3. Meeting other Maniacs
4. Kashmiri Wazwan & Kahwah
5. Canteen Diaries
6. Signing up their lives
7. The trek begins!
8. Tall Pine Trees & Lush Green Meadows
9. Will Niket Continue the trek?
10. Draw Four!

Part Four

1. Another Addition to the Gang
2. Shaabash, Shaabash! Aage badhte raho
3. The one where everyone moves in together
4. Ascent is nothing, but beginning of descent
5. Star-struck at Vishansar
6. The mystery of thousand eyes
7. Catching reflection of morning rays touching the peak
8. Hail stones disrupt plans
9. Arpit recollects New Year’s Eve
10. Their first day of fourth year engineering term

Part Five

1. Abhinav’s Dilemma
2. The One where Time Stood Still
3. Mumbai, City of Dreams
4. The Storyteller
5. What’s the Matter?
6. Arpit gets a date
7. Wherever you go, carry your own sunshine
8. The one where Niket walks fast
9. Arpit talks to the mountain
10. Latika becomes a part of the gang

Part Six

1. Temple of Humanity
2. The Log Across the River
3. The one where they fight
4. Punch-ed
5. India, India!!
6. Wild horses gallop down the valley
7. I think I wanna marry you
8. Our private pool by the mountains
9. En Route Zach Pass
10. Mesmerised by the beauty of the twin lakes

Part Seven

1. Abhinav and Latika break up
2. Baa baa, white sheep have you any wool?
3. Arpit opens up to Ruhi
4. Enchanted by magnanimity
5. Arpit’s decision
6. Homecoming
7. Bathing in Gangabal
8. Cake cutting at 11,200 feet!
9. Swami joins the backbenchers
10. Bonfire, Dancing and Folklore

Part Eight

1. Adios Harmukh
2. Say Cheese
3. Descending towards Naranag
4. Look, it’s a house!
5. We did it!
6. Planning for Soirée
7. Sunset at Dal Lake
8. Dinner, Drinks and Dance
9. Arpit asks Ruhi out
10. Date Night

Part Nine

1. Ek baar khaaoge, baar baar aaoge
2. Better late than never
3. The Wait
4. Are you kidding me?
5. I Quit
6. Meeting her to be daughter-in-law
7. Abhinav talks to his boss
8. Niket gets engaged
9. Madhu opens up
10. Happy Beginning!

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This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.

Sandhan Valley – A valley of rocks and boulders!

What?

Notice the straight line – That’s Sandhan Valley!

Sandhan Valley or the Valley of Suspense is a narrow 1.5 kilometre long valley with 100 feet rock walls on both its sides carved by water over years in the Western Ghats! Sunrays are not able to penetrate to the bottom and hence the valley always stays pleasant, sometimes even cold. Winds roar across the huge boulders unflinchingly.

Trekking Sandhan Valley

Trek Grade – Medium

Sandhan Valley is filled with water during monsoons and becomes very slippery to rappel down; November to February is the best time to visit this – Post that, water reservoirs dry up, leading to paucity in drinking water. This is a two day trek; descent starts on Day 1 in the morning at 7.30 post breakfast and is followed by crossing a part filled with water by making a 10+ person human chain(4-6 feet deep, depending on the time you go), a 60 feet and a 30 feet rappel and some tricky descents on huge boulders. Post the descent, we camp at the end of the valley basking in the glory of moon light and start walking towards the village at dawn on the next day.

 

Reaching there

Kasara railway station is a pandora’s box for trekkers! It leads to many beautiful treks in the Western Ghats like Harishchandragad, Kalsubai, Alang, Madan, Kulang and Sandhan Valley. Catch the last local to Kasara and reach there by 3 AM. From Kasara, catch a jeep to Samrad. Taxi services are available; but would recommend you to do this trek only via a trekking organisation and in a group! You reach the base by 5.30 AM.

Things to Carry

In addition to carrying necessary stuff for a trek and camping overnight, please carry the following too –

• Neck Gaitor / Scarf to cover neck from scorching heat
• Alum to purify the water you fill from streams (or a cloth to filter water)
• Odomos
• Inflatabe Pillow along with a mat and blanket
• Electoral Powder

How we did it

We registered with Mumbai Travellers – were a group of 34 people with 4 trek leaders. Trekking experience with Mumbai Travellers was good. Would recommend to join a group with a small group for this trek – coz there are three to four bottle necks and two rappelling points where only one member can descend at a time – thus making the procedure more time consuming for bigger groups.

Descending the valley; we crossed through huge boulders, braved the cool winds and crossed 5 foot deep water patch by forming human chains,  rappelled down twice, crossed a cave in military style – crawling on our hands and legs trying not to lift our heads or else, it would bang with the boulders, jumped along the final path and finally set camp in the evening on not so flat surfaced rocks. Playing games and singing songs at the bonfire brought an end to a tiring day only for our eyes to open again to witness the entire lake-side camp bask in the glory of moonlight. It was bright enough for anyone to read a book, if he had brought one 😛 The valley looked extremely calm and beautiful in moonlight – the breeze soothed our bodies and helped divert attention from our aching legs. It looked beautiful in the night.

Our Experience

Siddharth, my trek mate made this poem on Sandhan. As for me, I’m sharing my story through a video this time. Check it out!!

 

Sleeping in taxi and base village for some time,
Trembling, shivering in the cold water, no one wanted to dip in,
Passing the bags and crossing stones,
Many sung songs in tone of their own.

Rappelling was breathtakingly,
sitting on high stones, watching the deep valley,
Jumping on stones to passing the stony cave,
Exhausted and tired, we had no energy saved,
It was a trek all adventure seekers crave.

Under the sky we played funny games,
Attacked on dinner and peacefully slept,
At 1 AM, alone a boy danced, I got to see by chance,
At 3 AM the moon overhead, illuminated the patch,
Only chirping crickets interrupted,
Still the silence and beauty was serene,

The wind at night made us shiver,
Sleeping on stone was once in a lifetime experience,
The upma in breakfast was tasty,
The walk to village was nasty
The village lunch was indeed feasty.

The video – Please watch it in HD mode for clarity!!

A Catalyst called Muse

What is a MUSE?

Conventional Definition

The common use of the word muse is for a beautiful lady being an inspiration to an artist. Picturise Katrina Kaif being an inspiration to Aditya Roy Kapoor in upcoming bollywood movie Fitoor.

Expansion of the definition

I believe, muse can be anything which keeps the fire within you burning to keep going. It can be a person – love for someone – a destination – a dream – a material thing – a hobby – a belief in something – making money – causing an impact. You should have a fitoor (when something overwhelms your mind to the point of insanity) for your muse – to such an extend that it drives you and the world crazy and magic happens!

Why is a MUSE required?

Humans are not rational beings, they are normal – they are driven by emotions, meanings and stories along with logical thinking. (One of the reasons why we are having volatile stock market behaviour since last two weeks – panic followed by behavioural decisions :P).

We live in the future we create, not in the past. For example, consider you’re going on a picnic tomorrow. You’ll be so full of energy today, you’ll pack all your stuff, help your family members with routine chores, do your allotted work as quickly as possible, think about how you’ll spend your picnic day and get up the next day even before the alarm rings! Practically, you are already on a picnic right from the moment you decide to go on the picnic; the enthusiasm overtakes the day and it goes smoothly thinking about the upcoming picnic. At the same time, once you are in the picnic and it is about to end, you are filled with thoughts of pending work, getting back to normal life on the next day – the thought of getting up to work the next day doesn’t excite you much making you want to extend your picnic:P. Thus, you live in the future you create; if the future is meaningful and filled with things you want, it’ll drive you towards it with full speed! So all you’ve got to do is give your future a meaning you want.

Now, consider us millennials – we do things only if we find them adding meaning to us and the society – we question everything around us, for example – we don’t understand the point of working just to make money – our work should add value. We are very keen and in constant enquiry to find the meaning of our life! Once we find this meaning, we are set towards a journey of self transformation! A MUSE is your meaning/purpose for your life!! It is the future you created and are excited about!

 

If you only do what you can do, you’ll never be more than what you are!  – Kung Fu Panda 3

Muse empowers you beyond imagination; it connects you to your inner potential of unlimited possibilities. It pushes you to the extremes and you do things you outrightly thought as not possible! During this journey, you’ll transform yourself completely.

Lets take Baahubali – The Beginning movie as an example. Shiva, the son of Baahubali got raised in a small village on the banks of a huge waterfall and he always wondered what was up there. Shiva grew up to be a well-built young man aspiring to climb the mountain and made many unsuccessful attempts at it much against his mother’s wishes. One day he stumbled upon a mask of a girl which fell down from the mountain – that acted as a catalyst. Driven to find out the identity of the girl, he climbed the mountain again and succeeded this time. He faced the same hardships as before, but it was the thought of finding out about his muse which kept him going – he overcame all obstacles and made it to the top! The song Khoya Hai depicts this journey in an awe inspiring way. Have a look –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2clW8Zxq88

Now imagine if Shiva didn’t find the mask. He would have kept on making repeated attempts at climbing the mountain but never would have succeeded since there was nothing driving him towards it. And there wouldn’t have been a movie on Baahubali! 😛 Shiva was able to climb to the top because of his passion, love, commitment and dedication to the unknown girl behind the mask. It was his obsessive passion for the girl which made him climb the mountain – a feat never done before! The craziness of climbing a mountain was a cakewalk for him whereas the same thing would have been fatal for others. And after climbing the mountain he met with his destiny! (We’ll come to know about it in the movie Baahubali – The End)

Have a muse – it can be anything you are extremely passionate about and committed to. It might be poison to others, but should be honey to you. You’ll meet your destiny in the journey!

 

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda

Voice of Silence

Part One

Rahul laid there on the bed, about to go to sleep. The day’s work had drained his body; but he was still awake – thinking. Going down the memory lane, he recollected the roller coaster ride six months had been. His life actually began the moment he decided to take matters in his own hand – working for someone basking on his educational degrees didn’t appeal to him anymore and he put his papers, rolled up his sleeves and decided to start his own startup against the advise of his friends and family. The journey had been fascinating. He went to places he never had visited before, met people who had a different mind-set. He worked hard to analyse various sectors he could possibly start a business in. Education sector interested him the most – he found a gap between what colleges teach and what is required by students to excel in practical world. Now that he had identified a problem, he studied various research papers and books to understand it further. Six months into this journey and he had already burnt all the cash in his bank account. The savings from his job were over. The solution was still under development – partly done. This startup had cost him a lot – including his relationship. But that didn’t bother him as he believed things meant to be will be. He had 350 bucks in his wallet and wondered how things will turn out. In the silence of the night, he believed he’ll make it.

Part Two

Shyam was walking barefoot on the foothills of the Himalayas braving the cold winds which swooped through the pine forests – often hurting his chest through the holed cotton t-shirt. It was Thursday and he was on his way to Kashi Temple. Thursday was the happiest day of the week – for prasad was distributed in the temple after the Maha-aarti. The very thought of food absolved the 8 year old of the fact that he hadn’t eaten since last three days. He belonged to a small tribe which stayed in the foothills of the mountains. After the demise of his parents two years ago, the hut was occupied by his uncle, aunt and their kids. Constant mistreating and abuse by his relatives made him flee his own hut and the village. Shyam found an abandoned cave several miles away from the village and made it his home. The temple was only half an hour away now and he was pacing down the mountain with gusto, not caring about the pebbles breaching the foot skin. At last, he could spot the small rivulet – the only thing between him and the temple. He took a moment and prayed to Bholenath to give him strength to wade through the chilled water and reach the other side. He crossed the rivulet, walking firmly on the small rocks in the water. The cold water numbed his legs but he continued chanting the name of Bholenath. At last, he had reached the temple after a two hour descent! He reached the temple and bowed down in faith. He praised Bholenath to give him strength and thanked him for his life and prayed that he would go to school some day soon. With this he proceeded towards the langar and took the small box of prasad. As he proceeded outside the temple he saw an old beggar asking for food. This got Shyam thinking. The moment of silence helped him make a decision. He couldn’t see him hungry and instantly sat beside him to share the box of food.

Silence is as a matter of fact, a great equaliser. It provides everyone the same space to think and be! What you think in that space is your reality – for its your voice of silence which directs your actions in each and every moment, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and life… If you think you’re going to make it like Rahul, you are; if you think you’re rich like Shyam, you are and it will reflect on each action you take!

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

Book Review – SIX DEGREES: Game of Blogs by BlogAdda.com

https://youtu.be/jt4p4s2vTiM

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Hi Friends,

Imagine you are the creator of a small world having five people on it. They have pre-defined characteristics. How their story proceeds ahead is upto you. i.e their lives are in your hands! If you are getting the feeling of becoming George R R Martin and killing the characters one by one, then so be it! This is your world and your story!! Powerful right? Now imagine deciding the fate of five characters in this world along with a team of people. There are infinite possibilities as to how the story can go. A small twist here and a little digression there can lead to a totally different ending.

Think about the following characters:

Shekhar Dutta – a stay at home dad who happens to be a freelance writer in Mumbai

Tara Dutta – is Shekhar’s wife who is a media professional

Roohi is their 9 years old daughter

Jennifer Joseph is a photographer from Kochi and

Cyrus Daruwala – a law student staying in Delhi.

Now imagine an empty paper in front of you and begin writing your story. I bet you must have already made some assumptions about the characters.Well, that bias comes from our own personal experience and is bound to happen.

Happy Family

If you like photography, you will be drawn to Jenny’s character and eventually end up liking her. If you believe in the concept of marriage and family, you’ll make the family the best family ever! If you like writing, you’ll portray Shekhar in good light! You might also detail the characters on the basis of their surnames and caste assumptions – Cyrus will be a sweet Parsi then!

Now imagine reading three different stories using the same five characters written by different teams, having a totally different set up and a different ending! Mind boggling right?!! How can the same pre-defined character be so different in each story. That’s the magic of perception. For everyone of us, what we believe in is our reality; however, as a matter of fact, it is only our perception. There is no reality!!

Confused? Let me tell you about the book I’m reviewing today – It’s called Six Degrees – Game of Blogs.

Six Degrees by BlogAdda is not just a book, but a piece of publishing history. It is the product of the first collaborative blogging effort in India. It is the first time when around 300 different people working as 30 different teams have woven completely different stories with the same set of characters created by BlogAdda. It is a part of #CelebrateBlogging initiative of BlogAdda.

30 teams of 10 bloggers each began creating their story about these five characters. The stories were shared online on their blogs each day. The team members had to co-ordinate the order and structure of the story, and craft a masterpiece in a seamless manner while infusing it with their own style and way of writing. Challenging, right?

These 30 stories, in turn, were filtered by a panel of 6 Judges namely, Ashwin Sanghi, Kiran Manral, Meghna Pant, Natasha Badhwar, Raksha Bharadia and Ravi Subramanian. They selected 3 stories from them which culminated into what I’m holding in my hand – Six Degrees.

Of the three stories presented, I loved the third story, Missing – A journey within the most. It left me on an emotional note with a thought to ponder over.

Why the naame Six Degree, you’d wonder; well the answer lies in the book and I’d recommend each one of you to find out your own reality by reading it!!

Buy the book, pull an all-nighter, make coffee (hot chocolate is better), get comfy in the corner of a room within your blanket and begin reading!!

 

You can buy the book on Amazon, Flipkart and GoodReads, I’ve mentioned the links below in the description. Hope you have an awesome time reading this creative piece.

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Amazon – http://www.amazon.in/Six-Degrees-Game-Blogs-Various/dp/9352013891/

Flipkart- https://www.flipkart.com/six-degrees-game-blogs-english/p/itmecj9t8cvgphhb

GoodReads – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26881684-six-degrees

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Picture Courtesy: Freepik.com

Meet the Changemakers in Education Sector

In this series of articles, I’ll be sharing stories about people doing awesome work in field of education. They are making learning relevant for 21st century.

Ever wondered of a school of your dreams? Wherein learning is customised for you. Each child is seen as a bud and is given an environment where he/she can bloom to full potential. Meet Bandana Basu and Reena Dhila who run Shishyaa, a small pre-school in Vashi. Now, when I say a school, you must be thinking of a standard school with benches and blackboards, the students sit the entire day and learn lessons from books. But wait, this school is totally different!

Based on Waldorf Education System, Shishyaa believes actual learning happens outside the classroom – there are no books, there is a huge playground where kids can play and learn!

Waldorf education system revolves around creating love. Learning is based on age and psychology of the kid as follows:

Age 3-7: Activities to be done with hands. No reading or writing. Learning through stories (HANDS) Teacher is the textbook.

Age 7-14: Consciousness towards outside world sets in. Logic isn’t developed yet. Learning through making them fall in love with world (HEART)

Age 14-21: Logical thinking begins at this age. Now logic is taught to the kids. (HEAD)

This is how a normal day looks in Shishyaa for a grade 1 kid,

The day begins with praying to four elements of nature and singing and dancing on rhymes which are repeated for entire month. There is a huge field where kids are taught how to plant crops and play in the mud. They also are taught to cut their own fruits and share it with everyone. They wash their bowls once they finish eating. This is followed by story telling, drawing and music sessions. By teaching these things, child invariably learns basics of mathematics, science, nature along.

All types of festivals are celebrated in an eco friendly way and kids themselves make the preparations for the same.

Teaching is based on 3 R’s as advocated by Waldorf Education System – Rhythm, Repetition and Reverence.

As Ms Bandana puts it aptly, a teacher is like a farmer. One who simply works with the environment at the farm. He waits for the arrival of the season, checks for the readiness of the soil, sows the seed at an appropriate time, nurtures the soil, controls the light conditions, scaffolds the sapling until it is ready to be on its own, wards off the pests, enriches the soil with manure, while watering the farm regularly. All along allowing the plants to do what they will do anyway, ‘find roots and grow’. This he continues to do patiently, until its time to harvest.

And when the time is apt, he harvests the crop only to hand it over to the world to meet the needs of mankind. Selflessly, knowing that the fruits of his labour are not for him to enjoy. They are his gift to humanity.

Ms Bandana (l) and Ms Reena (r) along with Grade 1 kids

PS: You can connect to Ms Bandana and Ms Reena on shishyaa.weebly.com

 

Key Takeaways from Day 3 at Social Media Week, Mumbai

About Social Media Week

Social Media Week is a leading news platform and worldwide conference that curates and shares the best ideas, innovations and insights into how social media and technology are changing business, society and culture around the world.

Social Media Week, Mumbai – Day 3 at Todi Mills Social

Day 3 focused on social media for start ups and entrepreneurs.

INNOVATIONS IN DIGITAL MARKETING – BY RADHESH KANUMURY

Image Credit: SMW Mumbai

• IBM’s Global Entrepreneur Program provides technology, business mentoring and go to market support to various startups.
• Cognitive computing as a tool – Chatbots and other programs work on a similar mechanism, which begins with understanding spoken language, generating hypothesis, suggesting a solution and ability to self learn
• IBM’s Cognitive Machine – Watson – has 10-12 various functions it can perform ranging from language, speech, image to data insights
• Using cognitive machine, one can understand the profile, mood, tone and motive of the consumers
• This technology can also be used for recruitments to figure out personality of the person

 

DIGITAL MARKETING FOR STARTUPS – BY SAMIT ARORA

Samit Arora, Co-founder – Sales Panda

• Digital Marketing is one of the cheapest tools available for start-ups
• Art of using digital marketing is like making a perfect cocktail – you need to try things out, burn some money, before you figure out what works best for your brand
• By 2025 internet will become like electricity and 1080p HD videos will be consumed on smartphones – video content is need for the day
• Work on your on page SEO (good content, testimonials) and off page SEO (recommendations, getting vouched by experts)
• Some free tools which can be used – Google Analytics, Buffer, Hootsuite, Website grader, Adwords
• Adopt a Keyword strategy – pick up some keywords – all your blogposts should connect with those keywords – they should be in sync
• Check where the customer gets engaged – is the reaching the website (if not, check uptime), is he bouncing off from landing page (work on your engagement, create a better visual or story), is website responsive to mobiles?
• Tools for running an email campaign – Upwork, MailChimp, Rapportive
• Process for Digital Marketing:
• Assess -> Strategize -> Plan -> Implement -> Optimise

PERSONAL BRANDING SIMPLIFIED – BY KAVI ARASU

The WHY of Personal Branding: People buy from people. It is next that people buy something else you put forward

• By speaking about yourself in 5 minutes interaction, you open a possibility to stay connected and be open to further discussions. At that time you can talk about your products/ service, not before that
• Your presence comes first before the efficiency / performance of your product / service

The HOW of Personal Branding: Be purposeful, programmed, serious.

• Your online recognition on various social media platforms should be in sync with each other
• Social media platforms are for giving, not for selling. So be aware you need to give, a lot, before anything comes back to you
• Markets are in conversations – if people speak, there’s a market. Similarly, if there’s a market, people will speak

The WHAT of Personal Branding: Follow 1:9:90 rule of online marketing. 90% consume content, 9% curate it, 1% creates it. Be a part of 1%.

• Begin Working out loud – share your work even before its complete and invite feedbacks and collaborations to make it even better
• Be authentic rather than transparent – share only if it’s relevant to your audience

The WHO of Personal Branding: Richer conversations happen only with fewer people. Find out the following people (follow order of subsets) and engage in conversation with them:

• Domain Experts
  • People who you know
    • People who share
      • People who respond

The NOW of Personal Branding: There’s no better time to begin than NOW!

 

 

Key Takeaways from Day 1 at Social Media Week, Mumbai

About Social Media Week

Social Media Week is a leading news platform and worldwide conference that curates and shares the best ideas, innovations and insights into how social media and technology are changing business, society and culture around the world.

Social Media Week, Mumbai – Day 1 at Grand Hyatt Regency

Power of Storytelling in the Landscape of New Media -Vivek Nayer, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.

Image Credit: SMW Mumbai

• Tell stories to customers to build a rapport
• Short videos are an awesome way to share stories
• While choosing social media tools check for relevance, context, co-creation abilities (dubsmash), innovation, topicality and interactivity
• Be authentic and share what does your brand stand for

Power of Communities – Rohit Varma, R Square Consulting

Image Credit: SMW Mumbai

• Communities already exist. Brands should be looking at how to support them in what they do
• Plan for long term engagement
• Encourage people in the communities
• Personalised communication creates connection and engagement
• Take opinions and feedbacks seriously

Data with Soul – Samir Pitwala, Culture Machine

Image Credit: SMW Mumbai

• Analytics is being used for content distribution to relevant audience; now it is increasingly playing an important role in content creation too
• Bots to interact with consumers and change user experience – they will auto-detect, copy and deduce what consumers want without them telling it
• Analytics Softwares for content creation – use real time trends, understand vibes and make automated videos for consumption (uses same principle – auto detect, copy, deduce).
• Six types of Videos – 360 degree videos, live, web series, long form, short form, vertical videos
• Vertical videos and short form videos are great way to engage consumers

 

 

 

5 things to do after you watch Baar Baar Dekho

Some movies touch your heart and send you home with a thought to be pondered over; even though there might be many glitches in story, acting etc. Baar Baar Dekho is one such movie. It is a reflection of life of today’s youth, busy in so many mundane things, clicking infinite snaps but forgetting to live a moment! Nitya Mehra’s first directorial venture has shown her mettle and I look forward to seeing more movies directed by her.

The movie has amazing cinematography, awesome locations and most importantly it has a message!! Here are some takeaways from the movie, do these once you watch it.

1. Pause, close your eyes and listen to your heartbeats

2. Appreciate your loved ones – more often!

3. Be grateful

4. Live in the Present

5. Listen to Kho Gaye Hum Kaha by Jasleen Royal on loop

 

What if?

Today

is going to be your day.

You’ve worked hard for it

and shall get rewarded for the same.

*

Time

passes slowly.

The wait begins messing

with your mind – What if it doesn’t happen?

*

Reassurances

that’s all you’ve got.

As you refresh the screen

and wait for your results to come in

*

Declared!

You type in your id

and click enter – praying.

You have never been so vulnerable to ‘loading’.

*

Heartbeats

scream with expectations.

You enter into a different zone

and the result flashes – you’ve failed.

*

Blur

your eyes wet unknowingly.

Before you even notice the haziness

Tears run down your cheeks as you try to focus.

*

Denial

how could this ever happen?

You refresh the screen – check for errors

As heartbeats slow down, the feeling sinks in.

*

Vibrations

are at an all time low.

And you attract similar ones

from the universe – you hit the ghetto.

*

Today

was going to be your day.

You had worked hard for it

Why have you landed here then?

*

Today

is still your day;

as any other day.

Own up your failure.

*

Failure

is a part of life.

Essential to build ourselves.

Make it a stepping stone to your success.

*

Sometimes

we fall down in life.

Not to get ridiculed – but

to pick something more valuable.

*

Consider

this as an opportunity.

Opportunity to rebuild;

to look at things from a different perspective.

*

Today

is your day.

You still are awesome

and no one but you can take that away.

Is This Your Race?

What are you waiting for?

Closed Door

Believe.