and this article triggered the thoughts about that blog...
Are we all in for a rough ride...?
Thursday, March 01, 2012
Are we all in for a rough ride...?
more than 6 year ago I had posted the below blog. amazing to look back at it now...
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Why do I not cry?
This is a question that has been put to me, not quite often but many times in different scenarios. It is not like I do not cry, I do remember most of the instances I did, though admittedly few.
Thinking about those moments reveals much about what kind of person I am. The feeling that I have let down someone really close, that hurt. I cried silently. Facing an extremely difficult choice between two people, I cried aloud having made that choice. Hearing a song for the first time, tears rolled down taking me by surprise. Reading an article about guns and how human life lay waste triggered an intense anger inside my head and the emotion came out as hot tears.
We all have an emotional threshold beyond which our dam breaks. What we cry for will differ during our growing stages, but a pattern is set and the threshold is a product of our experiences. I do believe, just like being positive and smiling is important, crying our heart out is equally important. This we do not usually tell our children. Cry hard, laugh harder!
I think somewhere a social norm is set, boys don’t cry much and girls cry often. But we have all seen grown up men weep, in joy and sorrow. I wonder whether crying is unique to humans, as is laughter, that which differentiates us from animals. Teary moments stay with us longer than moments of happiness. The happiness can drain away pretty fast, but the quite moment of grief/pain/solitude stays with us longer.
A beautiful moment in ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ highlighted this. A guy who is afraid of water bodies is taken deep sea diving by close friends on a bachelor’s party trip. The actual experience is so overwhelming that it produces silent tears from his eyes. Piognant! The next time his friends asking him how he did it he just says – ‘Simple’, takes a deep breath and exhales. Just keep breathing…!
Brad Pitt recently said, and I paraphrase – ‘Being happy is overrated. I do not want to be always happy. We all have happy and sad moments. What I want to be is satisfied with what I do.’ Being in a state of “always happy” is an oxymoron for human life.
So my friends, cry, cleanse, remember, laugh and continue breathing…!
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Words spoken too early...
My previous post, exactly a year ago, quotes another post from the year before. While the Apr 2008 post worked out fine, I feel a few words of the Apr 2009 post were spoken a bit too early.
God did will. But it certainly wasn't the best year of my life. In fact I would call it the worst if not for my only solace. My wife and my family. I always had them near to support me through the travails of the past year (health, work, faith).
With caution and hope, I assume the worst has passed. To take a line from the last post,
"With my head held high and a silent prayer on my lips, I look ahead on the road called life... God be with us"
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
God willing…
As of today, Hariharan B is certified Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration from Great Lakes. Things are looking good and there is much to look forward to. But I have a feeling this just might be the starting of the best period of my life, God willing.
With my head held high and a silent prayer on my lips, I look ahead on the road called life…
PS:
Last year I had written…
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
At the end is the beginning…
It is always so. Four and a half years ago I became an employed youth of this country. It is time now to be a student again. I never though stopped being a student of life. I will carry the memories along…Now is a new chapter. In one years time a step up the ladder is imminent. God be with us…
With my head held high and a silent prayer on my lips, I look ahead on the road called life…
PS:
Last year I had written…
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
At the end is the beginning…
It is always so. Four and a half years ago I became an employed youth of this country. It is time now to be a student again. I never though stopped being a student of life. I will carry the memories along…Now is a new chapter. In one years time a step up the ladder is imminent. God be with us…
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Of Flag-Day, typos and the like…
I assume most of us will not have gone through the, what to say, rigmarole* of getting one’s name changed, officially! Except that for the past few weeks I’ve been squeezed to my wits end to get my name changed in all the documents an individual has to have. PHEW! Now I know why and how easy it is to go for a name change when you’re at school, before 10th class. If you do so all your subsequent documents which are proof you are a living person be in that name.
Though I had decided I’d go ahead with my name change way back in 2004, I did not do so for various reasons such as location, access to relevant docs and time. But with college coming to an end this month I wanted to make sure I possessed at least one legit certificate with my name as Hariharan. As per procedure, the first step was to fill out a form with stated and prior name and submit to an office near Higginbothams. The official TN Govt Gazette will be issued with the desired text within 10 days time. With the gazette in hand, one needs to advertise the same in a newspaper in English and the regional language. At least one advert has to be in the newspaper of your locality, for passport applications etc.
Those documents I needed to get my name changed in were, in order of importance- passport, license, PAN card and then the bank credit and debit cards. I’ll make this short because if I go into details I’ll have to relive the trauma which I don’t want to.
I went five times to the passport office, five to the license office and twice to the banks. I applied for passport in Tatkal and still fate would have it that my previous passport details in the Pison (Personal Information Source On Net) report was erroneous due to a typo by some moron. I was summoned twice for verification and once more for analyzing this typo. But finally, today, one blessed officer apologized saying that the mistake was internal and that I would receive my fresh one within three days.
The license office was a different story where no ‘paper’ moves to the next desk without deep throated shouting at arrogant officials. The RTO has to sign exclusive case sheets before being processed and my papers was typically so. But the problem was the RTO is a tough man to spot or catch. You should have an extremely lucky day and be a persistent ass to get an audience with the PA of the RTO. Once this happens, data entry of new details, payment of fees and photo shoot takes half a day. Stand in various queues from 9.30am and the printed card will come to your hand for details verification at around 12.30pm. Things can go wrong in between too, like the data entry operator mixing your old and new name in the bills! Finally the card arrives with the officer’s signature and when one turns around to thank the guys who ‘moved’ the papers to various desks is when one is called inside processing room to ‘donate’ Rs.100 for the ‘flag-day’. I guess with increased public awareness or whatever these guys have changed their ways and do not openly ask for bribe. And by the end of the grueling wait, I did want to give them something myself and a 100 split between five people worked fine for me.
Thankfully, the customer interaction skills of the bank employees were a whole Milky Way away from those in government offices. And so I had to visit each bank only once to submit the requisite forms. One has already completed the formalities and I expect the other to do so by the end of the month.
So folks of the world, those who contemplate name change in the future (even those who need to do the necessary in their passports after marriage etc.) contact me for help. And, I shall henceforth be known as Hariharan Balasubramanian, officially! :)
----------------------------------------------------------
For you J ;)
rigmarole (-ə-mə-rōl')n.
1. Confused, rambling, or incoherent discourse; nonsense.
2. A complicated, petty set of procedures <<<-------- *
----------------------------------------------------------
Though I had decided I’d go ahead with my name change way back in 2004, I did not do so for various reasons such as location, access to relevant docs and time. But with college coming to an end this month I wanted to make sure I possessed at least one legit certificate with my name as Hariharan. As per procedure, the first step was to fill out a form with stated and prior name and submit to an office near Higginbothams. The official TN Govt Gazette will be issued with the desired text within 10 days time. With the gazette in hand, one needs to advertise the same in a newspaper in English and the regional language. At least one advert has to be in the newspaper of your locality, for passport applications etc.
Those documents I needed to get my name changed in were, in order of importance- passport, license, PAN card and then the bank credit and debit cards. I’ll make this short because if I go into details I’ll have to relive the trauma which I don’t want to.
I went five times to the passport office, five to the license office and twice to the banks. I applied for passport in Tatkal and still fate would have it that my previous passport details in the Pison (Personal Information Source On Net) report was erroneous due to a typo by some moron. I was summoned twice for verification and once more for analyzing this typo. But finally, today, one blessed officer apologized saying that the mistake was internal and that I would receive my fresh one within three days.
The license office was a different story where no ‘paper’ moves to the next desk without deep throated shouting at arrogant officials. The RTO has to sign exclusive case sheets before being processed and my papers was typically so. But the problem was the RTO is a tough man to spot or catch. You should have an extremely lucky day and be a persistent ass to get an audience with the PA of the RTO. Once this happens, data entry of new details, payment of fees and photo shoot takes half a day. Stand in various queues from 9.30am and the printed card will come to your hand for details verification at around 12.30pm. Things can go wrong in between too, like the data entry operator mixing your old and new name in the bills! Finally the card arrives with the officer’s signature and when one turns around to thank the guys who ‘moved’ the papers to various desks is when one is called inside processing room to ‘donate’ Rs.100 for the ‘flag-day’. I guess with increased public awareness or whatever these guys have changed their ways and do not openly ask for bribe. And by the end of the grueling wait, I did want to give them something myself and a 100 split between five people worked fine for me.
Thankfully, the customer interaction skills of the bank employees were a whole Milky Way away from those in government offices. And so I had to visit each bank only once to submit the requisite forms. One has already completed the formalities and I expect the other to do so by the end of the month.
So folks of the world, those who contemplate name change in the future (even those who need to do the necessary in their passports after marriage etc.) contact me for help. And, I shall henceforth be known as Hariharan Balasubramanian, officially! :)
----------------------------------------------------------
For you J ;)
rigmarole (-ə-mə-rōl')n.
1. Confused, rambling, or incoherent discourse; nonsense.
2. A complicated, petty set of procedures <<<-------- *
----------------------------------------------------------
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