EY 08-09 – Miscellaneous activities

 Though last post really didn't cover the entertainment part but please bear with that section because it really has a huge potential; however if you really want to write off then it's not an issue as those are more on a non-operating entertainment income side. Hence, let me get back to the operating part again. The second leg of what I left behind in the previous to previous post.

Well, wonder is what sets us apart from other life forms. No other species wonders about the meaning of existence or the complexity of the universe or themselves. And as my friends know that I wonder a lot; so while wondering I found that I was having a golden time at my hand during the break between the date of convocation and the date of joining. That was sort-of unique time which won't probably happen again precisely because it was the time when I had the job and all kind of securities associated to it but no responsibilities or stress associated to it because I haven't had joined by then.

So, I used that time for a lot many things, major part was dedicated to socializing. My friends during engineering used to say that I'm so fond of attending the marriages or functions in general that I'm just one invitation card or a call away from attending the namkaran ceremony of grandson of buaji of my friend's landlord. I lived up to my image and attended as many as 11 functions (I hope I've been to recall all of them) during that time.

Secondly, I devoted a huge chunk of my time in pursuing those interests which have been pending for a long time, like swimming and music. I swimmed a lot, around 3 hrs a day, which is incidentally more time spent than that on studies during my academic days. I honed my guitar skills as well and raised myself to at least bearable level on that front. Normally, people don't get bored when I'm around (explicitly testified by one of my brutally-honest friend in our IIM Yearbook and one female friend from school days) and that's primarily because I talk useless things a lot which keep them wondering what those talks could actually mean and meanwhile, they forget about getting bored. So, to add to my PJs {Peyush's jokes (look even the full-form is a PJ)}, I've got one more thing in form of guitar to make people suffer for all the menaces they have done so far in their lives.

Well, last few lines have been sort-of-boastful so excuse me for that. Anyways, coming ahead of the break; let's talk about Mumbai stint. Well, I tried a lot doing a lot of activities but failed miserably at all fronts. I was very intermittent with all the pursuals; whether it was guitar, singing (Himesh instilled this hope that if he can then lesser mortals like us can, as well) or swimming. Moreover, I joined gym to keep up with the physical routine in absence of sports club and swimming pool; however I hit the gym on just six occasions in the period of three months so you can understand the extent of my bulging bisceps. Thus, due to my sheer laziness, everything ended in either zilch or approximately zilch.

However there was one activity which I could follow to a certain satisfactory level and that was 'Teach India'. Though I was a bit irregular with it as well, but overall I rate my performance 'satisfactory' as I managed to achieve the targets set on institutional and individual basis. I'm now eagerly waiting for the next year's version so as to contribute with even higher efficiency. One more thing which made this activity more memorable than any single activity in last year was the entertainment associated with satisfaction. I mean it might sound a bit clichéd but it was definitely very satisfying and emotional time to be there. Thank you Times of India! And how can this lekha-jokha get away without the mention of my two flatmates- Nishant (the creater of "three awesomely pathetic lives" – a sort of biography of three people which resembles a bit to the people you might know) and Sandeep (who can make me run for the money in PJs). They have been a partner in lot of the above mentioned entertainment activities (strictly those activities which have been mentioned here, so don't let your grey cells go elsewhere).

Well, this was the account of activities for the EY 08-09. I hope to perform better next year, and wish you all very best for the same, too.

 
 

Happy Birthday to me :-)

EY 08-09 – News & Media

News & Media are not a surprise entrants in the entertainment year, for obvious reason. I bet that not even Bejaan Daruwala or Sunita Menon would have been able to predict say 10 years before, about this meteoric rise of 'news' in entertainment segment. A lot of credit for this goes to 'India TV' which brought-in the concept of news entertainment. This is quite similar on the lines of WWE (erstwhile WWF) which calls itself Sports Entertainment; now that's again pretty disputed as many people, that includes one of my flatmate, can't understand as how WWE can possibly be included in Sports category. Well, I don't want to get into this side as in this blogpost, 'entertainment' word is more important and it doesn't matter if it comes from sports or pseudo-sports or news as long as it has some value proposition to offer.

India TV was no doubt, a pioneer in the news entertainment but there is no denial to the fact that almost every news channel from NDTV to Aaj Tak to Star News to CNN-IBN is more than eager to follow the herd. In my opinion, it's directly dependent on the audience's taste. Today if the people want the news-channels to broadcast this, then they are catering to their demands. One or two channels like "Headlines Today" or "VOI" tried to create a niche for them but didn't succeed to that extent despite being really quick on news-coverage side.

Besides, if we look at the performance of news-channels then I can safely said that they mightn't have proven high on the expectations of intellectual society but they have delivered perfectly on the parameters they set for themselves. They were able to sensationalize "Ayushi Murder Case" to that extent that today somebody may get double thoughts while identifying Mrs. Pratibha Patil but won't stumble even once to identify Late Ms. Ayushi. This is the power of media and they have (mis)utilized to full extent this year.

However, there were some disappointing moments as well, like in the case of 26/11 coverage which once again raised a big debate on the issue of media-censorship. I think that media should be free of censorship barring some rated-r categories of coverage; but they should be matured enough to decide the limit which they won't breach in any circumstances, even not for TRPs. Again, this would gradually come with the viewers' wants and requirements.

Well, I've been trying real hard since the beginning of this post, to focus on just the entertainment part of news but I've not been able to resist the temptation to move into the other things. You may attribute it to my old-fashioned mentality of looking at news channels at the much-talked-about fourth pillar but can't help it.

 
 

P.S. – Tomorrow would be the last post of this series, do remember 1. to read the post 2. wish me "happy birthday to you" ;-)

 

EY 08-09 – Sports & Movies

Well, the year begins on a high note with most of the news channel being confused whether to put IPL in Sports section or in Entertainment section. I didn't want to go into that debate so named my blog-post on both of them. So, IPL was definitely a very big thing to happen for both Sports and Entertainment in this country. How for sports- Ask Swapnil Asnodkar(s) or Shawn Marsh(es) of this world how much they gained in both economic sense with this ultimate money-spinner and in professional sense with this unprecedented platform to showcase their talent. How for entertainment- Ask the cinema owners countrywide who suffered with an under-booked matinee shows or the TV channel owners (apart from Set Max of course) who suffered their worst TRPs in almost a decade. The biggest beneficiaries (not in economic sense) were definitely the people like me who had nothing better to do (in fact, there is nothing better to do, even now).

By June 1^st, this extravaganza was over and so was my can-be-called honeymoon period; and had to move to Mumbai on 8^th of the same month in search of daana-paani. This shift made me suffer on sports front as I had to download-and-watch the recorded Grand-Prix or Cricket Match or Wimbledon final or similar things. This is due to the lack of television, which is again a big story and can be covered in some other post. So, overall sports couldn't contribute much to the entertainment part except for the news/blogs at sites like cricinfo, espnstar, etc. However, the movie spree didn't suffer in fact new horizons were opened in front of me to watch even those movies (I didn't want to use any kind of abuses) which don't get released in Jodhpur.

In EY 08-09, I watched Sarkar Raj (Decent movie however my friend didn't understand why they kept on singing "govinda, govinda" in the background when Govinda didn't even have a guest appearance), Jannat (Sonal Chauhan, will you marry me), Race (Watched with a big group of friends, and thus missed out on many moments of the picture due to being busy in the baqar all the time…overall, the time spent was worth it), Singh is King (This movie happened because my train was running late and well, I don't regret it), Bachna Ae Haseeno (Kaash meri life esi hoti), Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na (No Aditi across the globe can be more thankful to any other single movie; and yeah, overall an entertaining watch though not a compelling one), Rock On (Prachi Desai, will you marry me), Kidnap (Offoh, what was that; I've never seen this before that people started chatting in the cinema hall because the movie bugged them big-time and neither could they simply run away because it was raining outside; Lord Indra and Sanjay Gadhvi literally 'kidnapped' us), Dark Knight (Wow, and I thought Batman movies were boring), Dostana (watched with two guys, should I say any more), Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (Anushka Sharma, will you marry me), Ghajini (Huh, splendid success but didn't impress me), Chandni Chowk to China (He he, critics have already slammed this movie beyond recognition so let me not make my hands dirty), Luck By Chance (Casting coup of the decade; found it watchable), Billu (Don't know what to say- didn't find it interesting, but neither was I bored), Delhi 6 (Sonam Kapoor, will you marry me), A Curious Case of Benjamin Button (This was really an out-of-the-box stuff), Street Kings (I wonder why was no dialogue in this movie free of the 'f' word; watchable on lappy, nothing more), Gulaal (Simply Superb; haven't seen anything like this before, barring Haasil).

This list was strictly about the movies I watched in cinema hall. Besides, I watched a lot many films on laptop (out of which I regret the most about not watching "A Wednesday" in theatres) and that summed up the movies part of EY 08-09. As you can see, I had a lot of fun despite being the non-availability of television for most of the time; and managed to propose as many as four girls (though, without any success) in the meantime. So, overall it was a comparable performance to EY 2007-08 in Sports & Movies section, if not better.


P.S. – Nav Varsh (Nav Sanvatsar), Gudi Padwa aur Chetichand ki sabko hardik shubhkamnayen; enjoy!!!

EY 08-09

So, I'm back yet again and coincidentally back with the coinage of new terms (for starters, read my post 'YAM').  Well, in other circumstances I would have loved to write on any of the two ongoing hot topics: the unexpected political drama woven around the IPL and the expected political drama woven around the IPL.  Here, IPL stands for Indian Premiere League and Indian Political League respectively. However, I'm sparing these topics for our politicians and cricket-politicians (who are already giving Advanis & Gandhis run for their money) though would definitely like to come back to them some other fine day.

Anyways, coming back to EY; let me not build the reality show-alike suspense around the full form of this term. So, ladies and gentleman, EY stands for 'Entertainment Year'. Just as we've FY (Financial Year) or AY (Academic Year) so do we have an EY! Well, this year surprisingly begins on 29^th March which is coincidentally my birthday as well, and ends on 28^th March. There have been two big reasons behind coming up with this post today. Firstly because by this mean, I might get an extra birthday wish this Sunday from some unexpected person who mayn't like me but may like my blog and thereby would drop in a wish through calling up/orkut/facebook/gtalk/sms/email/in-person or by any other mean. This way, I could be able to break my 2008 record of 89 wishes. On the record, this number represents only those people who have just wished me and not kicked me along with it. I celebrate 'March' as the salvation-month-for-birthday-bumps and don't kick anyone. This helps me in reducing the level of pain a bit after all my experience says that recently enraged people often hit very badly, ouch!

Moreover the second reason behind the timing of this post is that we are running in the last week of EY 08-09 and it's an old good habit of human beings to recall the happenings of the previous year and ponder over them. Most of the times, these recalls can be horrible like in the case of examination results or the financial results. Both results share a peculiarity- whenever we face a bad exam result or a bad financial result, we always act surprise, awestruck and blame the circumstances or the God or many other factors for it; though we know from inside, these results reflect nothing but our yearlong performance. I can't get more into this: one, because the current students might complain that I've passed out so have lost the right to comment on examinations in general and results in particular; and two, because one of my boss is CFO of the company and he won't like me to talk about the connection between performance and financial results for obvious reasons.

Therefore, I've planned to write a string of posts on the happenings of EY 08-09 in near future. Well, I won't disclose the exact number of posts and the reason is pretty obvious; this number heavily depends on the probability of 'procrastination' and 'enthusiasm' in the coming days. So, let' pray that enthusiasm prevails over procrastination or even vice-versa. I won't mind as long as you are praying something for me; look good/bad are pretty subjective so it's alright with me.

 
 

P.S. – I don't know why my posts have to conclude with some global or philosophical or baqar statement. Please spare me for this.

Love/Hate

I've heard somewhere that Naseeruddin Shah and Kevin Bacon never watch their own movies; similarly, Ian Botham never went to nets for practice or say, Neil Diamond never used to rehearse before any performance. However, I am incidentally not a genius of their stature; so I need to revisit every work of mine more than once so as to learn more about the things which I did and even those things which I didn't. That revisiting not only helps in improvisation but also provides me with a few topics, sometime. For example, while revisiting my last post, I stumbled across this love-hate thing and decided to think more about it and scribble something.

Well I consider love and hate to be very close to each other; particularly when they tend to become extreme. That may sounds pretty surprising to many people but I think it's just like head/tail or north/south or black/white relationship. If you've one of them, then other would also be there accompanying the first one. However, there is another facet of this relationship, stressed upon by the preachers of love; which is that 'If you find yourself hating someone you thought you loved, then I would have to question whether you really felt love at all.' It is very easy to mistake need for love. Real love just loves, freely, without expectation. If that love is rejected, you may feel sad, but if hate is your response to rejection it indicates a feeling of entitlement & expectations.

Many times hate is a covering emotion, it covers other hurt feelings that are just too painful to bear. It is interesting to note that our desire for exclusivity arises in romantic love but not in hate. On the contrary, in hate we want to see our negative attitude shared by others. It seems natural that we want to share our negative fortune with others while wanting to keep the positive part merely to ourselves. In positive emotions, when we are happy, we are more open to being attentive to other people, but we guard the source of our happiness more.

Many testimonies, as well as fictional works, describe situations in which people find themselves hating the person they love. This might initially appear to be contradiction, for how one can love and hate the same person at the same time. A discussion of this problem requires making a distinction between logical consistency and psychological compatibility. Hating the one you love may be a consistent experience, but it raises difficulties concerning its psychological compatibility.

Love and hate are often described to be diametrically opposed; in this case, it is impossible to speak about hating the one we love without engaging in a logical contradiction. Two major arguments can be raised against this description. First, love is broader in scope than is hate, as it refers to more features of the object. Thus, while in hate the object is considered to be basically a bad agent, in romantic love the object is perceived to be both good and attractive. Second, there are many varieties of each emotion (and there are more kinds of love than of hate), and each kind cannot be the exact opposite of all other kinds of the other emotion.

Besides, there is an even more interesting point of view in which people claim that one hates because one loved. To illustrate, they mean that basically you hate someone whom you really wish to love, but whom you cannot love. Perhaps because you love him so much that you are unable to deject yourself even when the love is not been reciprocated, or maybe he himself prevents you or for some other reason. That way, hate is thus a disguised form of love.

What I feel is that if you bother to hate someone, you care enough about them to give them a great deal of "room" in your head. If you love them you do the same. I think indifference should be considered the opposite of love, in fact even of hate. Indifference is the strongest force in the universe. It makes everything it touches meaningless; love and hate don't stand a chance against it.

Delhi 6

So, here comes yet another blog post of mine related to Bollywood (Hindi film industry, for the people who hate this otherwise very popular term). Well, I have been an ardent follower of Bollywood and those who know me very well, can vouch for the fact. Besides, I've been a regular in the first-day movie-watcher list of cinema halls. Consider my apologies in advance for being too generic; but what I believe is, any guy who has not watched any Hindi Film or has not ever played cricket has actually not lived in India. I've deliberately used the term "guy" and not "person" precisely because it is well known fact that most of the girls simply HATE cricket J

Anyways, this post is supposed to be about Delhi-6 so let me come to the main point. I watched the film, as obvious, on Friday but waited for this post till today so as to give the chance to you all to watch the film on last weekend before any spoiler from my side at least. Now, it's quite some time and I think I can go on with expressing my opinion about the film. To state in one line: "I loved the film"

The whole plot revolves around proceedings in Delhi and has typical Indian day-to-day life as its backdrop and I should say that the filmmaker has done full justice with both the walled city and our lifestyle. Still, many people might not have liked the picture, as evident from one of my friend's status message which reads like "Ban Delhi 6 | The Director himself is Kala Bandar" but I liked it a lot; I liked it for its cinematography, for the art direction, for the amazing individual performances by powerhouse actors, for its screenplay, for its music, for its metaphors, and most importantly, for the soul of the film.

I don't know about others, but I could relate a lot to it. For those who have lived in Delhi, or Jodhpur, or many such cities could have easily related to things like jalebi-wallah or nukkad-talks or the tulsi plant or patangbazi or the Ramlila and the extent to which they are embedded in our lives. But all this was related to just content; I found the effort exemplary even in context of treatment. The metaphors like the person holding the mirror, the "dil gira dafatan" song, etc. run throughout the picture and made this clichéd story a worth-watching experience. Take for an example, the whole Ram Lila sequence where events like Sita Haran, or Shabri-ber, or Lanka Yuddh happening in accordance with the real-time happenings in the area. Metaphors have not been very common thing amongst Indian filmmakers unlike the western filmmaking style; there have been though a few exceptions in say Vijay Anand's or Guru Datt's works. These things definitely add a lot of beauty to the picture and like Rang De Basanti, this time also Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra hits a home run in this regard. I guess, now I've praised Delhi-6 more than required so I should shut up; but I would beg your pardon to praise just one more area and that is acting performances; everyone simply brilliant.

Let me sign off by highlighting one more aspect. The other day, I was reading Big B's blog and found him sort-of ridiculing critics for the huge difference in their reviews. Well, I would say that difference in two opinion is definitely possible; and somebody may like a work very much or just hate it big time (like recently in case of public opinion about dev-d; which I've personally witnessed). So, that should not concern or bother anybody. However, the sad part was the review by one of the famous critics. He gave delhi-6 a 1.5 star but that's ok; the problem is – he said that it tried to be another RDB but failed miserably in reaching those heights attained by its predecessor. Co-incidentally, the same reviewer gave 2 stars to RDB (check rediff archive for the same); now was he referring that "2-star performance" as "those heights"?? Well, I'm confused.

 

Congratulations and Celebrations

"Congratulations!!!"

I did not want to start this post with the clichéd statement of "I'm back yet again" (in the blogsphere, this must have been associated to me big time, by now). So, I chose more relevant word to begin with. Well, this congratulation is in the context of Oscars. Well, I am amongst those people who "don't" consider Slumdog Millionaire as an Indian film (quite unlike our media); we may call it a global film to be on safe side but definitely not an Indian film. And hence I'm rather happier for our A.R. Rehman (ARR) and Resul Pookutty than for Slumdog Millionaire or Smile Pinki.

It is true that somebody like ARR doesn't need an Oscar Award as a certification for being the great; however this recognition definitely matters on the global front. Despite all those allegations regarding various biases, there are no two opinions on the fact that Academy Awards provide the most celebrated and most recognized stage to stakeholders of entertainment industry. Though these awards are mostly confined to Hollywood, apart from a very few categories, still they have a big impact. This is for obvious reasons- Hollywood is the biggest film industry amongst them all. Hence, these awards would definitely boast the prospects of ARR worldwide.

However one thing which has fascinated me the most, during the course of this series of events, was another proof for the saying - 'Life is strange'. Actually, I tried asking my gtalk contacts yesterday (thanks to all those replied and sorry to whom I couldn't ask) as what has been their ARR's favorite song as of now. I know that it was a very small sample size but still I think that it would reflect a general Indian public trend. Roja was the hands-down winner and other responses ranged from Taal to Kannathil Mutthamittal to Dil Se to Jodha Akbar to Boys to Lagaan to Bombay to Rang De Basanti to Delhi 6; but interestingly and not-so-surprisingly, there was not even a single person speaking about 'Jai Ho' or Slumdog Millionaire. Most of us believe that the soundtrack and music was really good in this picture, but would not possibly feature even in all time top 5 of ARR. However, in context of achievements/popularity/recognition, this one proved to be The One and this really fascinates me.

Again a lot of Congratulations to all ARR fans, and wish you all a very Happy Mahashivratri!

Blogging

My first rendezvous with blogs happened during my engineering when the technical blogs proved very handy while preparing for seminar presentation and similar activities. Writing the blogs was though not on my mind that time, despite my profound interest in 'writing'. It was only during my summer internship between the two years of MBA that the idea of blogging struck my grey cells which germinated into my first blog (with the same profile I'm using right now).

That blog didn't last too longer and my routine problem of too-lazy-to-blog came into the picture. I tried revisiting but couldn't succeed. However, I tasted a little success in maintaining routine with this blog; and this time, it was less of a choice and more of a boredom which drove me across. There have been many pitfalls this time too, but more or less I've recovered back. The best thing this time has been my continuously reading blogs; I didn't take a break in that because I started loving this habit more than ever before. And this was the biggest driver in putting me back on track.

Experts have a lot of say, but for a common man like me blogging is a sort-of social interaction. I would say it's very similar to good old idea of people from different backgrounds coming together to discuss similar interests. Orkut and Gtalk beng the other two mediums widely used by me for this purpose. So, overall kudos google! :D

In the business networking context, thought sharing over social media is very similar to offline conferences organized for a specific target market. At the conference, people would meet unknown people, strike a conversation, exchange business cards and later on plan to capitalize on the contacts made during the conference for either business deal, or knowledge sharing sessions, or mentoring purpose and many more reasons. The human psyche hasn't changed; only, the means have evolved. These networking events now happen on the web. "Social media" works in the same manner. People choose to go to specific websites/forums/blogs/networking sites as they would go to conferences, Browse through user profiles, strike up conversations with other users and at the end of the day exchange contact details. And later on capitalize and the story continues.

I hope this story would continue, in my case at least!

Hanging between 11th, 13th and 14th

So, today was yet another Monday. Yesterday was however an eventful day in the sense that few more things took place in addition to the routine Sunday activities like all-day chatting, mallgiri, and movie sessions on laptop. Unfortunately, I couldn't sleep in the afternoon yesterday thereby making me wait for another seven long days to have an afternoon nap.

Yeah, so I was talking about events; the first was – waking up early on a Sunday morning - a rarity since last two and a half years. I've not waked up without any reason since ages and yesterday was not an option. The incentive this time was paying a visit to holy places of Mumbai namely Mahalaxmi Temple and Piya Haji Ali. Then, I had to rush to bandra terminus railway station to collect a bag of goodies from the train. Sorry to make those people jealous who are outside their homes; the bag contained laddu of three kinds (makar sankranti effect), gajak, til papdi and four more home-made items. Thanks to my father working in Railways, I could manage to get it delivered safely to my place in mere 16 hours. Railways Rock!

However, the second half of Sunday was typical Sunday stuff; something which has become part of my life, rather our lives (including my flat mates without their permission). The eventful Sunday ended for me with a horrific thought of forthcoming week. Don't get misguided, I'm not speaking about my office (it is more boring than horrific); but I'm speaking about the proceedings back at our residential place. The whole society faced few problems on account of shared electricity bill of water pump/motor at the very beginning of this year. That problem has yet not been solved and the water supply to our flats would be stopped from 13th (this number is definitely unlucky) of this month i.e. from tomorrow. If the problem persists, then we would have to carry water to 15th floor for every day-to-day work. Now, you can very well imagine why I used the term "horrific".

Well, I would say that it's the law of averages coming in picture- I've to pay the price for eating ghar-ke-bane-laddoo by pulling off buckets on sankranti. Fine then, aaj ki sabha yahin samapt hoti hai, dhanyawad. Enjoy 14th jan with flying kites, til ke laddo, and khichdi. Wish you all a happy Uttarayan in advance!

 

P.S. – This post was published on 12^th, however due to some issues; it has appeared with a delay of one day. Kindly read it in that context. J

Hi

Hi folks, wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year. I’ve been quiet for quite a while, and this time with apparently no reason. Neither was there any dearth of topics nor was I occupied very much with my work. If I’ve to put it in Deewar way then I had time, I had both relevant and irrelevant topics, I had the registered blog, I wanted to post something; in nutshell I had almost everything. Now, “almost” is a very dicey word and I can vouch for this fact from my past experiences? Anyways, it was actually the presence (an unwanted one) of one more thing which interrupted my blogging life and that was “laziness”. But finally I’m back yet again and hope to stay long. Though, I would not like to promise anything about handling laziness as it is really very difficult. That is one of the reason I’ve not put it into my very doable this years’ resolutions list.

Oh yes! New Year resolutions; well I tried making a few this year. Experts (look there are experts even in this area) say that either you make only one resolution or you should try and prioritize in case of more than one. However, I didn’t find either of their ideas attractive and thus made more than one resolution and those also without any priority. I would be sharing them one by one but not until I would start doing something about them. Right now, I’ve two to share with everyone because I’ve started working on them and a sense of achievement has started blossoming for me. Now there is a difference between success and achievement. What I believe is that achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. While, success, as I put, is one’s achievement being recognized by others on the basis of fruits/output/results. Undoubtedly, success's nice, too but not as important or as satisfying as the sense of achievement. So I always aim for achievement and some times find success accompanying it.

Anyways, coming back to the point; my first resolution was to keep track of my expenses- now this had nothing to do with cutting my expenses rather just keeping a track of everything. There is no big reason behind this resolution as my expenditure was never beyond the limit {of course, what a girlfriend-less guy with neither drinking (not even tea) nor smoking habit can spend on}. And it is neither like that I was thinking about ongoing downsizing and planning accordingly. Actually, I used to keep track of my expenses since school time and I was a living example of one of my professor’s statement- “There are people who would keep track of everything and can tell you the total expenses incurred during their two year stay at IIM”. But things changed once I entered into corporate life and since last 6 months, I didn’t bother even remembering any of my expenses. This time, with this resolution, my aim is to compare and conclude if which kind-of life is better suited to me.

After my first not-so-interesting resolution; here is the second one. I’ve decided to preserve the happy moments again, and this time with the help of Mr. Gates. It may sound very weird but I’ve started storing photos along with tags or my own comments regarding the day/event, also recording the day in Word and interestingly Excel is proving handy too, in this direction. Earlier, I used to maintain a diary and scribble everyday happenings. That habit lost sometime, I don’t remember when, but now I want to resume my journey. This year would mark a fresh beginning for me in that sense.

Sometimes we forget all small good things happen to us while we busy in running behind a big dream. But big dreams are like rainbow which gives you illusive view of happiness where all small good things are like rain which makes you feel happy and content instantly. I don't know how many of you will agree with my analogy but we all do same mistake again and again. How many of you can list out ‘every’ small good thing happen to you in your life so far. I think very few and now I want to be the part of “those very few” again.