I am happy with my Job, but my purpose of Existence does not seem achieved

How many of us feel this way? I am hoping quite a few.
With a recent promotion , I was reflecting about has it made me happy or happier rather.
Its been the puzzle for me ever since I realized that earning money cannot be only purpose of life.

When I got into my first job, I really wanted to understand how this industry works. The initial effort of the Industry to pull me into activities like Quality Assurance or Program Management which are the stereotype roles for females in the software Industry were quelled.

At least I am happy that I struck to my stand of exploring the technology world. But once I am in and am able to maneuver and get comfortable, this alone does not seem to make me happy. I love the aspect of being able to think rationally and being able to provide solutions to problems, but sometimes it seems like common sense and nothing extravagant.

To some extent this is the crisis for so many of us who are in the initial thirties, and who are from a typical middle class of developing country like India. Our initial ambition is to have a decent education and then get into a role where we are self sufficient. A lot of my peers are very happy doing what they do and blocking more real estate and stock than they are ever going to enjoy in their lifetime. I feel good atleast about the fact that I have realized quite early that living simple life with basic amenities gives you flexibility and freedom from money-bonding.

Still this is not enough, there are miles to go before you sleep. I have given certain other things a try to see if I get a sense of satisfaction if I do something additional. The whole reason for existence of this blog is because I have always felts writing very thought provocative, reflective and self challenging. Very often when I write these small essays, I realize how a thought in the head is very easy, but how tough it is to express it and to get the right words. This has helped me appreciate the work of the authors and effectively enjoy reading. But still not enough.

I then tried to engage socially, I became a volunteer at Balajanagraha program which is about civic education for school children. For about six to eight months , every saturday we need to visit the school and engage with the kids of eight standard and share with them the challenges of urban development. A very good activity, for all those who keep thinking that after I am forty as a second job, I will become teacher , this is an eye opener. The most challenging part of this is to be able to attract the concentration of the kids for the period of one hour without having to shout, beat or scold them. We have become successful already in making sure to tell our students that good things can be enforced only with stern and strict rules. I finished the second year this time and have realized this is not it either.

Among other things I am trying is to lead a calmer life, go for  a walk. One thing to realize is that not one of these can make you satisfied, there needs to be a purpose . Leading  a life with a purpose larger than your life is what can make one satisfied, I am still searching for it and he journey will go on.......

Smell

Perfume - One of the best results of human creativity.
I bought first perfume only about seven years back. But this was not the first time, i saw or used a perfume. My mother used to have a small bottle of sandalwood oil, this she said was the most costly perfume.
As a child, i was never allowed to open this or even touch it. It was kept with all the costly sarees and the sarees smelled of sandalwood.
Then came the first biggest event of our lives.For my sisters marriage, we decided to buy a perfume. We (Me , my cousin, my sister) decided that we should really savor the experience of choosing one. We were still in a city without too many malls unlike today. We went to a shop in city, this I remember was a small shop, but was an exclusive perfume shop.We were understanding how to smell perfume - smell coffee beans in-between, then smell the strip - during this shopping . Finally we selected - Burberry Touch.
The interesting thing is that since we bought this for my sister's marriage, every time I relish this fragrance, it reminds me of a great personal occasion, of celebrations.
This was just the starting of my perfume world. Then I started reading and understanding the science of perfume. The list of chemicals made me reluctant from using it directly on skin.
The next perfume i got was a gift for my birthday.One of my best friend understood my craving for  perfume and got me Calvin Klein Euphoria. I used this as a daily perfume , i used to wear it for work. I am past 2 bottles of 200ml by now, still have a new one UN-opened in my wardrobe. The fragrance is associated with work, every time I wear it I feel more professional.
Meanwhile, my friend bought Hugo Boss , I loved it in first instance. Soon I bought one too and in the later years, this was my "special occasion in office perfume." After few years my love for perfume was raised to a different level.
When I was returning back from my visit to USA, I went to Macy's and ended up buying - Armani Code, the lady in Macy's gave me a pack of small testers.
After about three months, I went again and this time, I bought a Sarah Jessica Parker brand perfume and tried one more Ralph Lauren brand and a Hermes.
I had become so much of  a perfume "Maniac", i ended up buying the Ralph Lauren perfume at my transit in Singapore.
Today, each of the fragrances mean something to me - they remind me of events,  one is for big happy occasions, other one is a happy work day, one more for something special at work. Few are stashed away for some future occasions. The sense of smell is so powerful , all of these fragrances bring back memories every time, some good some bad.I am not sure how, but it seems like brain does a match the following with smell Vs occasion. Anytime I smell Burnt Nilgiri leaves, it reminds me of the small town of my father, which we used to visit once in a while during occasions.

Full circle

We usually say life comes full circle. We have a lot of evidences in our personal lives and social lives.
Recently while watching the poster for a movie , another 3D , this is the same thought which crossed my mind.
The history of today's films starts way back and the forefathers for today's movies were the dramas.
So initially the Drama company had the actors come on stage and act. Live. If they did some mistakes, they had to correct them intelligently . In fact if you listen to some of the veterans of this field, they give us details of how an actor had to be all rounder  - singer, good speaker , command over language , suitably looking for the role and most importantly actor. And how although not well educated, these dramatists evolved to be the best.
The next phase was to record these and play them and we got the movies . The history of the movies can be a subject for a whole book and still the author might be left with a feeling of incompleteness. Its a vast subject.
Today we are crazy about three dimensional viewing. Every new movie can now be viewed three dimensionally.
Does n't it seem as though we are going back to the drama season? we are going back to age of dramas -  actors as they are, how they would really look if they stood in front of us. Not the fullest sense, but still is. Its an evolution at different level. While the yonder year dramas had the actors present , the background scenes were two dimensional . Today 3D is best used for the surroundings the actors are still acceptable as two dimensional views.
So then what next, my guess is that the view will be different every time, with something new and interesting. Imagine watching a different ending every time for the same movie, or different pairs of actors, or different backgrounds , what will it be  - time will answer.

The 1980s Born generation of India - Change boomers

So what is so special about the ones who were born in the decade of 1980 in India.

Lets see... We were a generation who did not have TV at their homes as if it was part of our homes. We got it as we grew - may be when we were 5/6/7 years old. So we saw TV. We had our times on Doordarshan - few selected programs. While some of these played, the roads would be deserted , everybody would be watching them like todays cricket match endings. We then got the cable television which initially seemed like a buffet dinner and lunch.


Then we went to school just like any other generations , we realized for an Indian Middle Class family - A home, food, clothes and education were the things our parents dreamt of. Most of us just stopped dreaming and even today cannot dream because we have so much within us - realities bite so hard we dont dream.

Then we saw computers , used it for programming, Saw a world without Google and then started googling. In our childhood we communicated with out friends over letters. As we graduated we moved to emails.  So we moved from one age to another age where world was so small, some student in some city of US had the same questions as us. We realized this with internet.

Remember so far not many had mobile phone.

Then came mobile phones, gadgets for calling, gadgets for texting. Still we used to browse on a desktop.
A lot of us within the age of 25 yrs have travelled more miles than our parents ever did -how? A lot of us went to US, saw a whole new culture. This culture where Car was a necessity and having a car did not mean you are rich, this culture which was very open about relationships, where you could chose your life partner , where drinking was not  a problem, it was normal to have drinks.

This brought us closer and fumed a lot of intercaste, interreligion marriages, looking at us and realizing that we are quite rational a lot of our parents agreed with this first out of culture behaviour.
Now we had money, some of us did not like what we did for this money we switched our profession - Software engineers became teachers, opened restaurants, moved to drama and theatre, with the surplus money we started experimenting. Still at 2011 we were not even thirty and few were in their early thirties.

At this moment we turned back and looked and saw that we already had nephews , neices who were already dreaming. This is the generation which had television as part of the house like food on table. This is the generation for whom mobile phones are gadgets which they started playing with. This is the generation which looks at Facebook to recall birthdays. When we look at them , we do not see us in them. Our parents cannot understand their language. We are the mediators who understand what they are talking and who value what our older generation thinks.

May be every generation thinks about itself this way, but for sure there are facts which back the 80 borns. They are the generation who have seen the values of their parents , the realize money is not easy, but they also realize that they need to live their dreams, fly freely once. This is the generation which can put the values into their kids, this is the generation which will give birth to the next new generation, the new generation which can dream. They will be the ones who will light the future of India. This is the generation which would have seen advanced technologies like laptops, ipads and impossible is not the word they will accept. They will pioneer into every fields and the 80 borns will encourage them in their dreams. Values will come back once we and the new generation realize that money alone is not sufficient for one to be happy.

We will also see a demoralized personal lives and how our lifes are not anymore about food, clothing, home alone and a lot more , but finally we will get to the right blend of values, discipline , money and professionalism.

Murphy's law prevails

Every time I fill petrol in my car after a few days the price would rise.Its like the day I bought the car, mother earth decided , am going to stop giving petrol to these people. Now that Gayathri has bought a car, let her suffer and pay the price for me!!!
I have paid 50Rs to 74 Rs over a period of year and half. Percentage wise that would be close to 48% increase. So everytime I visit for refill, I feel I should have filled up the whole tank the previous time and would have saved some money.

The day before yesterday, I stepped out with my family and realized I was about to empty the tank. I went to the usual bunk, to fill gas. I asked for 20L, he said there is only 2L available since there was a tanker strike. I said fine and got what ever he had. I was panicking a little since I still had atleast 40kms to cover and with my driving, the fuel is not usually used in the most efficient manner. The gears are not applied at the right time  :-)
Still amateur.

Then I hit the NH and on the way we sighted another Petrol Bunk , we got in and immediately i asked the guy to load 20L , he said he has it and loaded it and there was no Tanker strike. So far so good, I was now happy that even if I travel the whole distance in second gear, I still have sufficient petrol.So all of this was post Wednesday noon.

Everything well and good, next day before going to bed I was browsing the news paper, for lack of better books and lack of good movies at that hour, so that I can strain my eyes a little and sleep. And Lo!!!, there was a article with headline "Petrol Prices decreased by 78 paise on Wednesday - Thursday midnight". What a paradox, Alas the saving is very less but still, Murphy's laws prevails in this world.

How time season's us

Sandals
25yr : She is searching to buy a sandal for close to a month now. Passes by Bata show room and says "these guys are so boring, they will not have a single interesting model, all models will have skin color and black color, those are the only two colors these guys know. I only like woodlands" :-)

At 30 yrs: Goes to Reliance fresh/smart/safal... to buy stuff for her daily routine - groceries. Suddenly her attention goes to her sandals, she realized they are not anymore worth wearing for office and she needs to change.Right below the grocery store sees Bata, gets in picks the best of the worst , asks for her size. Gets one size higher or one size lower, wears one , walks for a few steps. Buys it . End of the deal 


Clothes
25yr : Almost every week end goes out,although there is no specific occasion, if she ever finds a good dress or dress material, buys it. Says "In commercial street there is so much variety, I just cant buy my stuff from anywhere else. I bargain like anything and finally get my dresses -only tried and tested beautiful colors.

30yr: She is speaking to her sister and the topic of clothes comes in. "accha ,  by the way, now that you say, I am short of clothes to wear to office. Do you still work close by to that shop in Avenue road. Do me a favour, next time you pass by it, buy some Kurta's/ shorts for me which will go with a white or a black salwar /chudi. End of story


Things at house
25yr: Option 1 : not yet married
    Option 2: Married and still not finished even a year. Tells her husband "You know i want to arrange my house like the way it is given in this youtube video, actually interior designing is a very interesting career, i don't know why I did not get into that", Anyways, get up and help me out here in arranging stuff around, it looks like a dustbin.
   
   
30yr : Typically by this time, they would have a kid.
    Its Saturday and she does not have to work, drops off the kid to the school or the kindergarten. comes back home and just looks around and kind of realizes it is not very well arranged. Tells her husband who now has a pounch and is slouching and reading a news paper. " Its Saturday, do some cleanup on your stuff", moves on to either TV or to Kitchen. End of story.


More often when we get out of college, each one of us thinks , "I am different, this society is like my past, I will change it. My lifestyle will be different, I will achieve something extraordinary , something great". As we get old, we mature in different ways, Nature seasons us. We realize what we are, we will be good to things which really matter and learn to let go for things which don't matter so much. We will have some achievements but at least realize that its not just us, there are a lot of more of our kind who are unique in their own ways. DVG says "Every single person on this earth is different, when you look at a person, you recognize him because he is unique. When we goto a shop we buy different things, which suits our own Family and our society, then how can our goals in life be the same. Each and every person has to realize the goal of his life by himself."    As time goes by goals change, all that is important is one to feel fulfilled in his/her life.

Eyes wide open but still sleeping

Have you ever had to sit in a meeting , which is total crap(sorry for the language but could not think of better word).
I am sitting in one of them right now, as I am blogging this article.
There is a wise saying in our language that "Empty vessels make more noise". It is the best observation ever. In the typical office world, we end up talking so much and doing so little.
If ever Gandhi Ji had to run a small office which owned getting Independance for India, I now see we would have just been reading articles in a paper till today and never attained Independance.
Sometimes office nuances take a toll. The worst part is that since you are spending so much time in office, it can start impacting your own personality. A lot of the times, i have seen that the people who start becoming very aggressive at office are aggressive at home as well.
Well for now let me go back and see what we are brewing :-)

It happens only in India

Bike in a coracle, with 20 people, we were at the edge of our wits and were worried we will be drowned. But no this is regular in India.

This is not different , of course we are all mammals , further down on the same river side there was some sewage spilling over into the river and people taking "holy dip".

Who is watching ....

Every time I get into aero - plane, I am excited not about the travel, but the journey itself.I make sure I get window seat always. There is something about viewing the cities from high above.When I am on ground these cities seem so important for our existence but from the sky they just seem like specs, totally insignificant . Or when the sky is filled with clouds it is a different feeling to get in between them and be amazed at the beauty we are so close to but still so far. I always wonder , how nice it would be if I had a home in the cloud :-) It also brings in a kind of humble feeling and I start thinking, about what is the significance of my existence. My home is probably a dot at that high altitude and cannot even make out where it is. Imagine how I would make any difference to this world just by my existence. At the same time, I cannot stop wondering about the power such a small being has - look at the power of some of the revolutions spawned by a single leader like Gandhi / Nelson Mandela. Another thought I get every time is, we all are coached in our religions about God watching all of our actions. Looking at a view of the city- just the city i live in- and identifying the houses / monuments is such a tough task. If God has to watch the whole of earth with all the beings, I cannot even imagine how he should be or how he would do it. That is when I come back to some of our spiritual learning and realize why there is the concept of -"God Within". Every religion preaches this. The greatest messiahs , the most thoughtful people of all religion were enlightened with this concept and have enunciated this - "God is there within yourself and don't search outside for him". Just thoughts ......

Views

While reading a book -"The idealist view of life", there was one note from author where he says that - the religion and the belief, the practices are something which one inherits from his birth." If you think about it , probably it is the best reuse ever - inheritance - Inheritance of belief, inheritance of religion, inheritance of views about what is right and what is wrong and a lot of day to day practices. We inherit all of these from the families into which we are born. One way this is good, imagine if every one of us were to be born and then understand all of this ourselves - from scratch. It takes a lot of thought and knowledge for a human being to come out of this initial shield and then try to create a different view about religion imposed , and the day to day activities part of it. For example, as we start understanding a lot of the beliefs and scientifically try to reason, we unveil that not all practices are needed or are correct. In this line of inheritance a lot of things have just mutated so much that they are no more valid. Now there is no need that this new view is the right one in the eyes of your society, people who have grown so far in their thought , will now be very staunch about what they now think is right. Because they are the creators of the view, they are not just following something. This can be a better experience if our education systems were equipped to help us question rather than gather information. The Indian education system today just ensures that we know things but does not emphasize enough that we believe, with a reason about what we know and the view we have. While reading one of the books - a philosophical one rather - it was hard to keep up with the topics discussed. Often after a day's work it is hard to sit and concentrate on abstract topics like the ones above. Although the book and the topic is good, its very intense and there is no story. A story does not have to be like the way it is in fiction, but just make you come back to the book to complete what ever the chapter put a question on. This is when I started realizing the importance of stories full of life in Hindu religion to showcase principles of religion. The Vedas , the Upanishads are abstract in this sense, it requires one to concentrate with lot of thought put into whatever is being read. When they realized , it is hard to achieve and propagate this knowledge is its abstract form, the Puranas came into picture. They have colorful stories, Making it easier to still emphasize on what they want to communicate but in a different manner. This is the reason, we have rituals to engage a human beings mind on activities which will keep them busy. If all of this is taken away and if you were to just lead the life - just you as a human being , it would become monotonous for those of us who have not found the real human bonding - love.

Amazing creation

I recently met somebody and have been quite amazed / baffled. I did not really appreciate the person sentimentally( for the short time I communicated) but for the short glimpse of few days I got to interact, I had to say I was quite Amazed and had to say "What a creation".

Nothing else other a human being be so advanced among God's creations. When you meet thinkers or beings who realize that there is something more than the usual money and fame one wants in life, it is indeed an astonishment. In one of the books I was reading where the author was talking about intuitive knowledge, he was explaining why things like studying, getting job, getting married and having kids , creating property have been the milestones for more than 70% of the human species. He was telling that we dont know what else to do with our time, and sometimes I feel what he said was right.
Take for example marriage, although there are reasons of progeneration and general norm of evolution to make this important, in the world we live in, this is close to a business. Matrimony sites showcasing available brides and grooms, talking and figuring out on blind dates and then when it actually gets finalized, all of these are business like. But then alas!!! man does not know what to do if he is not going to be married.
The rest of them have evolved similarly, today's eduction in India is an excellent example. There is hardly any use of what we study in the classrooms of life. But then we dont know what to do if we dont put our kids to school, we just follow the standard route like flocks of sheep.

Wars

Think about all the wars human beings are fighting across the countries. There are more than 2000 battles fought for Jerusalem alone historically and even today, as per one of the theories America needs to be engaged in a war all the time to support their economy.

Each country has fought its own battle for freedom, or to defend their territories. If only there was no war or battle or fights, where would have we invested all those resources into.

Yes, quite unrealistic, that we will ever be in a situation that requires no war ever. The people lost in both the world wars are quite enough for one to think over his whole life . In my mind, i think if the whole world had been like the typical Bangalorean - mind your own business attitude, we would have invested quite a bit of our war budget into some research, which might have improved our standards of living more than inventing the new and more advanced missiles.
Probably in bridging the gap between poor and rich, not sure or we would have already been to mars by now. You can never know .

Nevertheless its just a thought!!!!