This is to announce that I've become proud father of a beautiful baby girl....

Although the expected date of delivery of my child was 23rd of June, during my last visit (on 5th of June) doctor had said that now the baby can arrive any day. So I took a long leave from office and was with my wife in Jaipur. As everything seemed to be normal, on 11th I went back and joined office on 12th. However, it proved to be a wrong decision as in the evening I received a phone call from my father-in-law that they have admitted my wife to hospital as she was experiencing labour pain and doctors are saying that baby can arrive anytime during the night.

She finally came at 02:32 a.m. on 13th of June while I was packing for my journey back to Jaipur from Vijaipur.

From railway station I went directly to hospital but could see my daughter only after 02:00 p.m. She is under specialist's supervision (in ICU) and hence doctor's did not allow me to hold her in my hand, in fact I could only see her from a distance for a few seconds only. But those few seconds are something I will cherish throughout my life. In those seconds I'd seen a small, fragile looking almost pink in colour small baby girl, who would look up to me for all her needs and want and get inspiration and strength from my success. Who would one day call me "Papa".

Thank you my dear wife for promoting me to next level of hierarchy in life.

Main jahan rahoon, main kahin bhi rahoon .... teri yaad saath hai

Its final now ... I'm going to be away from my beloved country in an entirely new environment for more than 16 months starting July 2007. I had few other options but in the end I believe that an MBA degree from AIM shall prove to be the best foot forward towards achieving my career goal.

Now Philippines.... though it is in Asia only, more than 400 years of Spanish and American colonial rule has resulted in its culture being closer to US, than any other country in Asia.

While I was in Manila, in the month of February 2007, I'd befriended an old filipino guy and on his invitation visited his house. This guy, Ricardo had four daughters who were all divorcees and to my horror all four were planning to get married again. They also introduced me to an American staying with them, who was a friend of Ricardo's second daughter and was in Manila on a short visit. This American and Ricardo's second daughter were planning to get married sometime in the month of November 2007.

The same scene might happen in number of families around globe, but one can not imagine anything remotely like this to happen with any Indian family. This and many other things like this are uniqueness of our Indian culture. I'm sure going to miss India and its beautiful culture, its diversity ... everything.

Only yesterday night, I was watching a hindi film, "Namastey London", which has India and uniqueness of indian culture as the theme. I really really loved a song of this movie :

"Main jahan rahoon,

main kahin bhi hoon, teri yaad saath hai….

kisi se kahoon, ke nahin kahoon... ye jo dil ki baat hai.

Kehne ko sang apne, ek duniya chalti hai,

par chupke is dil me, tanhayi rehti hai....

teri yaad saath hai."

Zindagi....Kaisi hai paheli

This is not the first time that I'm in pain .. but probably its the worst chapter of my life ...or ..may be not ...I don't know whats their in store for me in future .... whatever .. but the fact is I want to scream .. to cry .. to cry aloud .. but I can't do that ...
The worst part of this ongoing tragedy is that I can't share it with anyone. I'm not sure exactly whose fault it is .. but sure I'm part responsible ... in hindsight I feel I always ran away from my responsibilities on this front .. whatever ... the fact is that I'm finding myself unable to salvage the situation... the damage done is irreparable ...

Considering that only a few weeks ago I was so happy that after years of frustration and agony of working in a PSU without any job satisfaction, I'd resigned from job and was about to begin a new chapter in my life ... Everything seemed to falling in place...and then all of a sudden my life went topsy turvy ...

Zindagi .. kaisi hai paheli hai .....

How shall we treat our heroes?

I still remember the "farewell" Steve Waugh received when he decided to retire from professional cricket.

I'd watched it on TV and I must admit I was throughly impressed. The test series in which Waugh was playing for the last time ,was meticulously publicized as "Waugh farewell series", and it was a big event in Australia, and in world cricket too. He was accorded a standing ovation at almost all the cricket venues.

This was probably Aussie way of saying thanks to their "hero" for bringing laurels to Australian cricket.

Then a few days back, I saw the farewell that a player from Subcontinet received. After serving Pakistani cricket for more than 16-17 years, Inzamam had declared in advance that he'll retire from One day cricket after world cup. Before the advent of world cup, Inzamam was a hero in the country. He was being credited for resurgence of Pakistani cricket and all. But once their team lost 2 matches in a row, the same guy became a villain. One responsible for everything that was wrong with Pakistani cricket.

I'd the privilege of watching his retirement one day match too. After the match when he was walking back into the dressing room, in front of an almost empty stadium, I really felt very sad.

I believe we from subcontinent are too emotional. We certainly lack mannerism of treating our heroes.

When they are doing good, we go full throttle to shower them with "too much to handle" love and affection..

A little drop in performance and we try to leave everyone behind in castigating them.

Is this the way we should treat our heroes ? Certainly not. At least not in my opinion.

I didn't like a bit in which Saurav Ganguly was unceremoniously dropped from the team and neither I agree with the undue criticism of Tendulkar and company.

We certainly need to grow up.

Uncertainities of Life

This is not the first time that I've seen a highly talented and intelligent student cracking under the weight of expectation and peer pressure.

The first such case, I remember is that of my assamese friend. It was he who one day approached me while I was studying in my room in the FIIT JEE's Hostel located in Munirka, South Delhi (Feb 1998) and asked, "Ravi, can I move into your room?". In the very first look he seemed to be a very studious and sincere student. I said, "sure".
In those 25 days, that he stayed with me as my "roomie" (My time wasting habits forced him to change room again), I realized that someone can actually study for more than 19-20 hrs in a day. His Physics and Maths concepts seemed to be crystal clear and in these papers, most often than not, his solutions for most difficult of the questions used to be the "perfect one". However, chemistry was always his achiles heel and may be it was the reason that he could not get a rank in JEE 1998.
I was a bit surprized to see him in the batch of 2000-04 at IITG. I approached him many a times but he did not seem to be very comfortable in my presence and as he was staying in a different hostel, we hardly met 3-4 times in a year.
A year latter, I was really shoked to know that this friend of mine suffered nervous breakdown after getting "F" grade in 02 papers. He was not attending classes for months. He was out of college for an entire semester. Latter I came to know that his parents used to stay in college from morning till night so as to take care of his son after and between classes.
My brother passed out from IITG two years after I graduated and by that time my friend had not completed even his third year.

Then there is case of some of my batchmets, who joined IITG alongwith me but dropped after a year and accumulating a few "F" grades. Its a different matter that they cleared JEE again and joined some other IIT two years latter. No idea, where they are now.

However, I'd never expected any such thing to happen with one of the sharpest brain of my batch, who passed out from IITG as (DR) Departmental Rank -02. The most liveliest of the guy, who can gel with anybody and everybody. He was not only favourite of "proffies", but also one of the most hated and talked about guy in girls hostel because of his "awaragiri wali harkatein".
In the year 2005, he joined IIM Bangalore. And I was all enthu, when I called him to know where has he been placed. When he did not pick up the phone, I called one of our common friend and what he told was really devastating to say the least.
No body is sure what happened, but this friend of mine is sitting in home since last six months. He does not speaks with anybody and nobody is sure if he'll complete his MBA or not. Thinking of his retired father whos only son sits idle in front of him all the time, give aches in the heart.

This reminds me of my arguments over "fate & luck" with a fellow old passenger, few years back while traveling to Baroda by train. I was like, "only losers believe in fate and luck. One can achieve anything and everything with hard work".
But now this incidence has really forced me to believe that fate does play an important role in one's life.

Family Problems

A friend of mine sent me this joke.
-----------------------------------------

Two men, one American and an Indian were sitting in a bar drinking shot after shot.

The Indian man said to the American, You know my parents are forcing me to get married to this so called homely girl from a village whom I haven't even met once. We call this arranged marriage. I don't want to marry a woman whom I don't love...I told them that openly and now have a hell lot of family problems."

The American said, "Talking about love Marriages...I'll tell you my story. I married a widow whom I deeply loved and dated for 3 years.
After a couple of years, my father fell in love with my step-daughter and so my father became my son-in-law and I became my father's father-in-law. My daughter is my mother and my wife my grandmother. More problems occurred when I had a son. My son is my father's brother and so he my uncle. Situations turned worse when my father had a son.Now my father's son i.e. my brother is my grandson.Ultimately, I have become my own grand father and I am my own grandson.And you say you have family problems...Gimme a break!!"

ROG

Its well past 3:00 a.m.
And I've tried almost everything. Switched off lights. Switched off TV. Switched off my Lappy. Tried all known sleeping positions. Tried to meditate. Forced myself to believe that I'm tired and want rest as I've not been able to sleep for more than four hours since last 4-5 days. Even, took more than 3-4 rounds in the hostel gallery. But alas.. all in vein :(
May be my wife is right. I'm suffering from insomnia.
"Mujhe ROG ho gaya hai ".