From Mini to Max...

A while back one of my oldest best friends sent me a mail...saying "Hey, check me out...mini me! Back when I was in 10th!!"

He was the favorite of the Math(man) tuition teacher, sitting right at the back of the class, sharing bench with a mountain sized guy, which made this mouse sized guy noticeable, screaming out answers as soon as he was done, and what was more interesting, he was almost never right, but got his brownie point for his enthusiasm. I was the first bencher, with a mousey voice, completed the problem much before others, but never shouted out the answer unless provoked by the "Mathman".

When I joined my 11th, I settled into a straddly wooden bench, the last in the class, and looked around at my new classmates, future IITians, googlers, architects, scientists, MBAs, event mangers, sales engineers, etc, I noticed one familiar face, sitting in the first bench looking at me, probably trying to connect the dots too. 10 days later, mouse guy runs up the courage and says, "I will tell out tuition sir that you are back". I said to him, "I will throw you out of the window if you do that". Since that fateful day, we have had 100 pepsi/thums up bottoms up, split a 100 rs in 3 different ways, discussed 1000 crushes, had 10,000 coffees, fought over who should pay the bill a lakh of times, fought a million times, became friends after that a gazillion times and managed to get to some 13 odd years as friends.

Sitting in a cafe, sipping the worst coffee I've ever had, after work stories are swapped, and cribs are exchanged, we arrive at a comfortable silence, observing people and drinking in the scene around us, I realize, so this is what they mean when people say "Friendship cannot get any better, when there is comfort even in silence". Perhaps I am lucky, and maybe he is too. We have seen each other through crests and troughs, and most importantly through changes.

Changes have been profound. To be witness to someones growth curve is a big thing. I have watched our spending power increase, from small time bakers to spending in big time restaurants. I have switched to diet cokes from pepsies and thums ups, for obvious reasons, while his preference has always been the simple food. Our outlook towards life has changed, from calling spade a spade, we call the spade an instrument that can till the soil to enable plantation of plants/trees/flowers. Our friends circle is different, our ambitions have remained the same, our priorities have not changed, our admission to having been through trials and tribulations have become something of a heroic talk, our lives are enriched with the presence of wonderful people who we are mutually proud of, our domination over the past that sometimes bothers us has given us the strength.....whatever it may be.....we lived it through....not necessarily together as friends, nor enemies, but just watched or known or understood. But We Know.

It would be hard for me narrow down one single moment, and say this was my best moment, this was my best conversation, this was the best gift, etc....I think this journey was not about the destination at all, it will always be the journey. The journey that circles around the life you lead every day and the journey that will begin again tomorrow morning when you wake up, with memories of yesterday and memories to be made. Nothing could be better than waking up in the morning and knowing you have a friend who does'nt judge you (no matter how many crushes you have had :p) , who would never say No to a distress call, always finds inopportune times to remind you that you are a sore loser and its really ok to be one, laughs with you...at you.

In these years he dint grow up to be a tall guy, or a muscular guy...infact he is as he was when I first saw this mouse sized guy in Mathman's class....its just his heart grew bigger and bigger and bigger...

And as he starts out on yet another journey....yet another beginning and yet another decisional quicksand....I wonder about my comfortably silent moments during horrible coffees and the gap there will be, I ofcourse know this is certainly not THE END....but an end of..what is....and THE BEGINNING of what will be yet another Journey, yet another Chapter.

The Confessions of a Confused Mind.

I have a new color of nail polish on today. Instead of my usual color, I have used something that will make my feet stand out...literally. And I realized from the clothes I wear to the type of laptop I used to the pens I buy, from the wall hangings in my room to the equipments in the gym I work out on....I am ridiculously comfortable in my comfort zone. So whenever I see something new....I walk towards it observe it....walk away...thinking some other time...lets save. But if I see something old and well used in style many times by me...well I tell myself, life is all about investments isnt it. I do buy it. Ive seen myself do it....8 million times already...and I suspect it will happen another 8 million times, unless I understand the reason behind my own comfort zone and on what grounds is it built...I would probably never be able to feel free.

Ive always looked at people who enjoy their minds freedom with some amount of jealousy. When I started building boundaries around me to keep people out and myself safe, all I ended up doing is fence myself in. I thought it was at the time the best thing to do. Pretend that certain things are not important. That everything has a logic...I just have to put my mind to it. I found my comfort zone, trying to be everybody but me. It was easy to blend in. It was also easy to loose touch with what seemed important and what should ideally be not. I should've learnt to be more of myself by learning the best from others...whilst knowing that what I have is ok too. Comfort Zone makes it difficult to admire yourself. Comfort Zone prevents you from embracing yourself. Is this fear? What part of your past plays a role in this? Because I'm sure it has.


I know a lot of us would've spent a lot of time figuring out where we went wrong. And what did we do to get it right. I know I have. But with each passing year I realize things dont get tough, we just choose to call them tough, and blame the stars. Life is a choice. Everything we do is a choice. While I agree there are many things that are beyond our control, how we react to that is also a choice. I'm on the other side of 25. Fast approaching late 20s. I look back and think, how many times have I chosen to play safe, for many reasons maybe. Maybe the timing wasnt right. Or perhaps I was'nt convinced enough. Now when I look back, half my choices were born out of instinct. And I spent a lot of time, not trusting my instinct. I told myself I'm scared, maybe I was, maybe I was'nt. But even though in my heart I would know, it was the best decision made, because I would'nt feel an iota of regret. But what governed the rest of the course of my life, was the choice I made in my reactions to it. The choice to react. What a powerful statement. The best decisions are made in desperation, did we know that. Forget results. But the best decisions have been in desperation. But our willingness to guide the outcome as desired, is really an outcome of desperation. Because in desperation, we are clear. In desperation, we know what we want. In desperation, we know what we must do in order to achieve it. In desperation.....we can see the roadmap clearly. In desperation...you have no choice, but to hang on to hope and never give up. In desperation, we are more open to risks. So, why was desperation always a bad thing? Maybe it's how we react in desperation, that makes it a bad thing.


Risks. The word going down. In my line of work, Risk Management is a great part of our work. Foresee, Document, Plan, Document, Act, Implement, Monitor, Control, Document and finally despatch the product. The 12 principles of risk in project management are - 1. organizational risk 2. Stakeholder involvement 3. Alignment with Organizational Objectives 4. Risk Analysis 5. Reporting Structure 6. Defining roles and responsibilities 7. Support from Top Management 8. Regular meetings to detect oncoming risks 9. Review 10. Overcoming barriers to risk 11. Culture that acts as enablers 12. Continual Improvement. Bottomline of this piece of gyan is you can do a lot to identify risks, and a whole lot more to reduce it....but you can never eliminate it. So risk is an integral part of our life. Risk and Comfort Zone are inversely proportional to each other. Cost benefit analysis would probably reveal the returns would be much more if you did take a risk, whilst that which you stand to gain from not taking a risk would bind you to your comfort zone forever with serious emotional implications such as regret, wonder, mind numbing escapism, etc. I thought it through. Coming out of my comfort zone is...highly essential. Albeit, once you do, the journey from the risks is to yet another comfort zone, but then, what the heck life is about progress right, and it is better to progress from one comfort zone to another, than to remain at the elementary level and never having the experience.



I did some looking up, and apparently Dr. Phil has something to say about Comfort Zone with a schematic..!! With Happiness on y-axis and Comfort Level on x-axis, I think while being on your comfort zone, Happiness peaks initially, but as you go along comfort zone happiness starts dropping exponentially until infinity. I'd say if I were to quote anyone right now, it would be from "Into The Wild" - Its not necessarily important in life just to be strong, but to feel strong.


In time, we learn, in time, we also learn to unlearn whatever we learnt. And in time, we learn to survive. Perhaps time will teach us how to live. And in this, I hope we are uncomfortable enough so we take a risk and capitalize on that opportunity, and just Live. We owe ourselves just that and nothing less.