My first hanging in the air post...

30,000 ft above mean sea level :)

What happens when you are feeling happy from the inside and dont know what to do. And what makes the situation even more difficult to fathom is that this isnt a fleeting, momentary experience after several attempts of denial you realise that this is one of those metamorphic moments that you had always thought about.

There is a hindi couplet that I useto keep rehersing in my mind time and again. Just imaging the time, moment and the opportunity to actually use it for myself...

देर लगी आने में तुमको, शुक्र है फिर भी आए तो
आस ने दिल का साथ ना छोडा, वैसे हम घबराए तो

(der lagi aane mein tumko, shukr hai phir bhi aaye to aas ne dil ka saath ka choora, waise hum ghabraye to)

These lines are closest to what i meant and wished to be my last words and the end of a real long phase of strife. And now as I experience this phase gradually fading always from my life I feel much like a hopeless romantic whom Gulzarhas soo wonderfully captured in his words...

कोई रिश्ता नही रहा मगर फिर भी एक तसलीम लाज़मी सी है ...

(koi ristaa nahi raha magar phir bhi ek tasleem laazmi se hai )

Altought its all over, yet the ackowledgement is bound to be.

So apt and so true...

last but certainly not the least....

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

With an internship and job offer from a leading strategy and business management consulting firm, for a change I can say that I have started making headway in the direction that I forever wanted. A career in the feild of Strategy Consulting was a long cherished dream. And its only day 2 of my internship when I am already waistdeep on a client engagement that I have come to terms with the fact that I am finally there.

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

happy-less...

"Happiness must never be pursued, but should always ensue"

We spend so much of our time, energy and efforts on chasing happiness and yet at the end of each day find ourselves more tired and emotionally exhausted. That one fleeting moment of bliss which we experience at times makes life worth bearing and brings method in madness. And then, the very next moment after its gone we once feel lonely, miserable and cheated. We again go back to the tiring search where lies our only hope. This is an agony that we face and dont know how to get over.

So what is the way out ? (if there is a wayout)

A optimist will say - keep walking

A pessimist would turn into a cycnic

A logic driven person would remain equally clueless

And an emotional person like would write a blog ;)

To each onto his own. Or is it a self-serving Catch-22 ?

Viewpoint...

Perception is the looking glass through which we view the world. Often we fail to realise that this view of life is the view that we have chosen for ourselves and its the single most potent tool that can liberate us or limit us the way we use it.

Mumbai Skyline...

An unplanned sneak out to Marine Drive front last evening lead to this cell snap, the scribble below and truely tranquilizing experience....

A tired sun

melts

disolves

and finally fades

leaving behind

a sublime moment

of pure silence

pure bliss....

Why Consulting ?

Feedback from my training mentor on the internship project that I has executed -

"The students who have come for their training have shown sincerity and
positive approach towards learning. During the training phase, Ashutosh has exhibited a high level of drive. He has good communication skills, is analytical, takes efforts to learn new things - he will do well in his career."

And as I stood in front on my College Director, all beaming, shining and gleaming, she read it twice, half-smiling nodding in approval came the punch line -

"Surely you have a natural knack for understanding things in there
entirely, the lager picture as they say. And also you have the ability to
make simple things complicated, I think should aim to be a
consultant"

:p

So let me throw this question in the open, would surely love to hear what do my regular and not-so-regular readers think about this, suggest the best suited career for me plz ?

Psychology of Finance...

After two courses in Investment & Portfolio Management in this semester and a hangover of Corporate Finance from the last sem, my hunch lead me to further dig down and finding ultimatly finding the amalgamation of Psychology, Economics, Cognition in - Behavioural Finance .

And then happened to read through a stunning article on decision making biases by Nobel Laureate, Daniel Kahneman, who by the way is a psychologist by training.

And finally, from the Nobel Prize Website here is Autobiography and video of his Prize Lecture .

I tend to get carried away most of the times and end up all excited, amazed and awed. However, let re-iterate, all the links above are worth the time and effort required to read through.

Why HR ?

A million dollar question that is as fundamental (read as redundant) for a placement interview in a b-school as are the questions -

To be or not to be ?
Who am I ?
Who came first, chicken / egg ?
What is life ?

While mankind, spanning from Plato to Jug Suraiya ponders on these questions and tries to find Atlantis, here is a candid insight into this question by a group of seasoned HR professionals, along with a .... well.. a satrical, literal interpretation of the golden rule ->

"People are our greatest assets".

remembering papa

दर्द का एक टुकड़ा
अभी तक मॅन में दबा रक्खा है ....

Its been fourteen years, fourteen long years since I lost my dad, and ever since life has never been the same and never will be... there is a deep sense of vaccum that engulfs a part of me, just like an eclipse, a permanent one in this case... a growing of loss was a part of my formative years... and what was even worse was that I tried to hide this and everything that I felt, never acknowledging my feelings even to myself... I was in general angry and confused with the world around and the one within...

I remember being petrified at the age of seventeen when for the first time I had heard Roger Waters sing in a subdued voice, a song that would haunt me for a very long time, echoing in my ears at nights when I would lye tired and emotionally weared out and could never sleep... still remember the hospital corridor where I sat all night filled with silence outside and my head full of noise, these words playing somewhere at the back of my mind....

Daddy's flown across the ocean
Leaving just a memory
Snapshot in the family album
Daddy what else did you leave for me?
Daddy, what'd'ja leave behind for me?!?
All in all it was just a brick in the wall.

The pain that had been diffused for so long had all of sudden, in one moment crystallised in one moment, in these few lines... There is a lot else that I could have remembered and said on this day, a lot better sounding words and pleasent memories, but again that would have been one more coverup... a facade...

लाल सुरा की धार लपट सी कह न इसे देना ज्वाला,
फेनिल मदिरा है, मत इसको कह देना उर का छाला,
दर्द नशा है इस मदिरा का विगत स्मृतियाँ साकी हैं,
पीड़ा में आनंद जिसे हो, आए मेरी मधुशाला।।

Thoughtless thoughts …

Experiencing a wave of thoughtlessness which comes as a welcome break… sitting in the evening with an idle mind and feeling an inner calm is truly a matter of privilege, so I am in no hurry to let this moment go and neither have any intention of a dissection and/or analysis… a no brainer moment J

We often live an oscillating life; either, buried somewhere in the past - brooding, repenting, agonizing or the most killing of all "what if" ,or, tending towards (in true sense of calculus) a sublime future – loaded with all that we wish (to be, to have and escape from)…

And then once in a while there is a moment that stands still in the time frame of the present… and such moments are literally a present (a gift) which should be acknowledged with a smile, a pleasant surprise and then relished… they are just like the delicate sensuous feel of a chocolate melting in the mouth… a pure experience… and that's how exactly they are meant to be enjoyed… these fleeting moments are meant to be fully and thoroughly lived in the present (the now) in full, just like when standing in the rain and getting drenched, soaking up the freshness, the joy and letting the child within us to take over…

So here I am, after so many weeks of making mental note of forcing myself to post something here and couple of times me and the "compose post" page blankly staring each other, I had lost hopes of coming up with something original, something that I would like to write about, and something thats worth sharing… and then on a thoughtless evening a brainwave J