Just Thinking

  This is not about the cricketing extravaganza he gave us. This is not about his good sportsmanship or clean off the field record. This is about the belief he gave us. The belief that, Yes, It can be done! A common man can rise above all.  For atleast two generations and three decades, Cricket meant Sachin and Sachin meant Cricket. I don't know if there is any other person on earth, on whom so many people have always put their hopes on. Anyone else, would have easily gone down with arrogance, pride, over confidence, etc. But not Sachin, he kept on hitting the ball perfectly for 25 long years. The straight drives, the pull, the cover drive, the upper cut. He might not have asked for it, but a complete nation was putting its hope on him and that's a huge burden.  If I had one good day and 2 people praise me, I would be in the seventh heaven and spoil myself. And then there is this man who had 25 good years and over Billion people praising him, even calling him god, I ju...

We all know that decisions of a few rich people are still impacting majority of the population. But, most of us don't care to ask how or why, especially middle class population. We don't feel that it is impacting our lives much. But the time is about to change. If you don't know the answers of how or why, please read ahead. If you know, still read ahead, you might gain a new perspective. Few rich people are basically the money lenders of the world. They lend it to big organizations through shares. Suppose we have an investor Mr. A who has recently invested in Company XYZ. Now Mr. A can earn from his investment in two ways, first is dividends given by Company XYZ as percentage of share value held. Second, share of XYZ goes up to a value at which Mr. A is comfortable to sell it. Performance of XYZ is measured by growth, both in revenue and profit i.e. topline and bottom-line. If during 1st year of investment, Mr. A sees 3% of growth in performance of XYZ and gets a...

I had an accident a few days back. One of the cars in my left lane decided to take a sharp turn towards right. In that speed I couldn't avoid the back of it passing by and my front tyre brushed to it's side, throwing me and the bike off balance. I hit the road. My bike went on skidding a few feets away. A few people came and picked me up. The car also stopped a few meters ahead and the driver came to see if I was ok. Then came the moment when I felt empowered. Everyone's sympathy by my side. The guy was at my mercy. People around began charging at him. I ignored them, saw the fear in his eyes, extended my arm for a handshake and said "take care from next time". Everyone around me calmed down. People started disbursing. The guy also went back to look at his car. I looked at my wounds, started my bike and went to the office.  You might have ignored this, but our roads have became the most violent places to be. When people came to know about my accident, the very n...

Today I was held up by a traffic police officer in Hinjewadi for driving on the wrong sideof tge road. If you haven't heard about hinjewadi, let me tell you, it is one of the IT parks of Pune with terrible traffic conditions. So, I start negotiating with this officer. I said, " warning deke chod do, fine kyu le rahe ho ( give me a warning and let me go, why are you charging me fine)". He said, fine is to make sure you don't do it again. I paid the fine and left. Almost everyday you will get stuck in traffic if your office is in hinjewadi, irrespective of where do you live. So after paying the fine for driving on the wrong side to avoid traffic, when I was stuck in traffic for around 30 mins, I thought why can't I charge a fine for this traffic jam to some government body like The RTO or PWD or Municipal Corporation. Yes, there are alot of people travelling which mostly causes the traffic, but even the authorities have failed miserably in planning. Narrow roads, ...

Do you believe that we are living in an uncertain time? I mean, Governments and Economies around the world are going for a toss now and then, terror attacks are shocking the world every day, wars are being predicted in near future, environment is changing drastically every single year, a life changing technology is being invented every day and more such things which use to happen once in a lifetime are now happening in blink of an eye. Are we the reason behind this uncertainty? To look at the micro level, what I feel is we have started valuing each passing second in a completely different way. The way we are trying to extract as much out of everything, the same rule is being applied to time. For example, companies in distant past might have been reporting their annual progress, then came the quarterly reports, then the weekly updates and then the daily status updates from teams. What next? Real time monitoring of growth? We are tweeting everything, posting every second, judging a...

Yesterday, an old man of my grandfather’s age joined his hands and did namaskar to me. I did not know what to do, as he was one of the teachers who taught my father. He was bedridden due to his old age. He is 88 now. But he is not the old tree I am referring to in the title of this blog. The old tree is much bigger than a person. My father had some errands to run in our ancestral village Mangrul dastagir which is around 120 kms from Nagpur. It was long since I met my grandfather so, I joined him. After the long drive and the work was done, my father was keen on meeting some people in the village. People who he remembered from his childhood. His friends, teachers, family friends, etc. First we went to one of his friend’s house. The joy this friend had on his face when he saw my father was something else. It was like two brothers were meeting after a long time. My grandfather was along with us. The respect he got was astonishing. He was regarded no less than a father by this friend. S...

In India cricket and Bollywood are no less than a religion. If you compare the number of people going to a temple and a theater, there won't be much of a difference. In a temple we praise the lord and in a theater we praise the actors. For some, cinema is just a 2 hour entertainment, where as for some it's life. Cinema, movies, films have become an irreplaceable part of most of our lives. On weekends all of us watch a movie or a part of it, either in a theater or on a laptop or a TV, but we do. The reasons are pretty simple. They take us away from all our worries, sometimes we even relate to the stories. We cry with the character, we laugh with them, we start living their lives. But for 2 hours only. That's the beauty of cinema, you get to live multiple lives without anything to lose.  May be that's what attracts us the most. Everything is an affair of just two to three hours. However, making a movie is not that simple. To depict a complete story in few hours is a...