Yin Yang

“Shadows in life only proof that there is Light somewhere”.

“An acorn grows into a Mighty Oak, and withers back to produce Acorns”

“Is a wall created to keep secret in? Or thiefs out?”

All these are phenomena that occur in our day to day life. All these are a tribute to Yin and Yang.

As per the popular belief Yin Yang means a balance between good and evil. But in reality, the meaning of yin yang is far more profound. First, let me explain the meaning of the symbol.

As can been seen, the symbol is made of 2 colours, white and black, yin and yang. Naturally, it means two opposite forces, not necessarily good and evil. Also, on careful observation it would appear that one is dominant is some part and less in other. There is a small part of yin in yang, and yang in yin . Finally, they together create a circle, a cycle, an infinite continuation. When one reaches its peak, it changes to the other. It depicts that Change is the only constant in Life.

When we put everything together, what we arrive at is the following conclusion: that life is a balance of 2 opposing forces. If we think of them as good and evil, then we come to a conclusion that life is made up of good and evil, but...there is always some good in an evil force, and always evil in some good force. That is the essence of balance.

“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

Its because of this reason that we have many seasons. Every season has its own low and high points. And as all things, every season is transient.
Absence of one of them simple means that its antithesis is dominating.

Just like
“Knowledge is nothing but the absence of Ignorance”

For example let us take the example of fire and water. Both are opposite, but both are necessary for life. We need the warmth of the fire, but it can burn us as well. We need water to survive but it can drown us as well. Good and Evil... together, in harmony.

Another interesting example would be that of the Sun and Moon. Both exist together, but only one dominates at a time. During daytime, darkness is less and light is more, at dusk, the wheel turns and darkness prevails with a small source of light.

Even the food we eat has yin and yang in them. Yin foods are those that keep you cool, yang food are those that give you energy. You can only survive if you have them in harmony, in moderation.

Have any of you wondered why “Fish and Chips” is popular. Why do soft drink companies always have an offer of free chips with them? Soft drinks are highly Yin. Salty items are highly Yang. Your body craves to maintain the natural balance of being. And in the course we make soft drink companies obscenely rich.

Or even a favourite of us all. Curd Rice

A tree can only grow as tall as its roots go deep.

There is freezing space above us, and molten hot lava beneath us. Yet we thrive.

How many of us always take risks, and how many of us always play it safe? How many of us feel happy for others without a touch of jealousy?
Can there be winners without losers?
Can there be valleys without mountains?
Can there be success without failures?
Can there be a truth without lies?

In conclusion,
To appreciate something good, we need to see the bad. To know what is right we need to see the wrong. You cannot appreciate good times, unless you have gone through bad ones.

Yin Yang also tells us, that balance is always changing, and always being created. What would happen if the Sensex always went up rather than Down!!!!


“in every dusk a new dawning
in every cloud a new lining
in every storm a new calming
in every winter a new warming”

A Rendezvous with Me

On 1st August, 1988, in a small colony called HindMotor on the outskirts of Kolkata, a family was distributing Raj Bhogs. Why? Because a son was born. The first son of the eldest son of the family, naturally, demanded some sort of extra celebration. The mother, when asked about what name should be written on the birth certificate immediately replied “Rohit”; and that’s how I was born.

First of all something about my name: “Rohit” means the sun, and “Jhunjhunwala” means a person from “jhunjhunu” which is a place in Rajasthan.

My journey has been anything but normal right from the first day of my life...How?

Well to begin with, I was born with eyes the colour of which was grey-green. Everyone who had a first look at me, was mesmerized by them(or so my mother tells me). This resulted everyone in calling me “Cat eyes” and even now they have a surprising effect on many people(its a bit sad that I wear glasses that hides them a bit) 

During my childhood I was a very pampered kid. My grandma used to spoil me and my mom was always against me. Mom said-“You, get up and go to school”. I used to act as if I was in a deep sleep and wouldn’t wake up. Seeing this,my grandma would say “Let the kid sleep. Don’t spoil his sleep”.
But you know what my mom would do? She would drag me up, carry me, brush my teeth, and dunk me down in the bath tub, after which it was impossible to fake a sleep.

Life went on and we then shifted to Kolkata for me and my 2 sisters’ education. I studied till 9th standard at South Point High School.
As a kid I was not very interested in the normal outdoor activities as any kid of my age would have been. I preferred to stay at home, watch tv all day long, read comics, and my biggest passion – Video Games. I was attracted to anything sci-fi or fictitious. This was probably when I developed my preference to science and technology. I used to buy a whole armada of GI Joe vehicles, GI Joe guys, Hot wheel cars, build forts with my cousins, give imaginary powers to the most mundane figures, build my army and go to WAR. Even the comics i used to read were all about superheros like Najraj, Dhruv.

Even now, I have a passion for futuristic weapons, concept cars, Sci-Fi movies and Video Games.

I grew out of comics, and went on to Tinkle, Chandamama and Archies and later on to more thicker books. The thickness and gravity of the book I read was directly proportional to the number of books I read. Somwhere during that time, I found a set of chess lying around my house. I took it, without having the faintest idea and opened it. I was intrigued by the chequered black and white board. I tried to learn how to play it by asking my parents and relatives. But no one knew how to play. So you know what i did? I made 2 armies of those 2 sets and went to war again. This was perhaps the beginning of my interest in Chess and I can honestly say that I am somewhat good at the game now.

All through my growing years I was constantly battling an array of medical problems stemming from a very rare kidney disease I had. This restricted my activities to those that didn’t strain me, make me exert myself and which didn’t require much physical fortitude. Although it was a pretty bad thing, some good did come out of it. It made me a very punctual person(as I had to take lots of different medicines at different times), efficient time manager(as I had to juggle between the vary activities I wanted to do as well as the doctor appointments), knowledgeable(well at least medically), I lost my fear for needles  (because when you are poked every week for 6 months you hardly notice anymore), I learnt self-control(because when almost all kinds of food are banned for you, you learn to control yourself). My medical condition is probably a big factor in making me a person I am today.

Fast forward a bit... We land at Chennai Airport. Why?
Because I had a Kidney transplant and the docs recommended we shift base to be under a better care. That was 9 years ago. If nothing else, this event in my life was the biggest game changer. It bought with it, its own set of complications and relief. I was allowed banned stuff, I have to take more serious medications all though my life, I have to fight the side effects of those medication, fewer but regular doctor’s appointments, frequent infections and so on and so forth.

When I retrospect, I realise, my world has turned upside down after the shift to Chennai.

I used to be an average joe at studies back in Kolkata. Here, I managed to come 3rd in my school in 10th and I was the school topper in 12th.
I used to be an introvert. Never talked to people, liked to be by myself. Here, I developed the liking for public speaking, oratorical competitions, and elocutions. So much so that I went on to win interschool competitions and was made the School Literary secretary.

Infact the changes were so astonishing that many a time my family has joked that I have had a “Brain Transplant” as well.

The passions that I had during my childhood were still intact except for TV. Because? I had found a better alternative to that. Computers!!!. The first time I used it, I was so fascinated by it , I sub-consciously must have decided to have a career in it. So keeping that in mind, I entered Anna University and did my Bachelors in Computer Science and Engineer and graduated with Distinction.

I joined iNautix Technologies India Pvt Ltd as a campus recruit and was awarded the Outstanding Trainee award and Best Project award 6 months later. I am now a full time developer that the company.

Anna University was a gruelling experience as it was, and add to that the medical complications I had to go through, I believe that I have really achieved something I can actually be proud of. The medical aspect of my life has certainly had an effect on almost all other aspects of my life.
But I like think that, had it been different, I would not have been the same person I am in front of you today. The Butterfly effect would surely have made me a very different person.

I am a very stubborn guy. If I take up a responsibility I will see it through to the best of my ability. Almost all time, my demeanour depends on my mood. If I am in the mood, I can be as busy as a worker bee or as lazy as a sloth, if I am in the mood, I can be a talkative person, or the most laconical person you have ever met. I can be sweet as sugar, or as angry as a bull which has seen red.

I like to be punctual. I don’t mind being 10 mins early, but hate being even a second late.

I am honest, and a very straightforward person. I don’t mince my words, I speak my mind and I might be blunt at times.

I sometimes write poems, and also blog about life in general. I live in a very idealistic world and seeing the real world, I find many anomalies, some of which I pen down on my blog.

I like experimenting with various cuisines, I have been to almost all restaurants that serve a different cuisines. Greek, Thai, Chinese, Lebanese, Spanish, Italian, Mexican, American, Continental, Arabic, North Indian, South Indian, East Indian, etc.

I know Hindi, English, French, a bit of Bengali and a bit of Sanskrit. I want to learn Japanese. I love to travel and whenever I am on a vacation I never like staying at home. I always like to wander about. I strongly follow the motto “when in Rome, be a roman”. I love learning new cultures and their way of life. You will find me a lot of time on the internet, talking to random strangers trying to know about their culture and how different things are.

My ambition in life is to become a happy person. Sounds cliché right!!
I don’t really have one single philosophy in life, but rather a philosophy in the various roles we play in our life.

As a professional I strongly believe “Work when you got to work, play when to got to play”. As a traveller I believe “a traveller doesn’t have a destination and is not keen on arriving”. As a friend I follow the saying “ a good friend comes to see you at the hospital, a best friend will be lying down right next to you”. As a person seeking happiness, my motto is “Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you run after it , the more it eludes you. But sit down and be quite, it will slowly come and sit on your shoulder”. As a person asking who has seen success and failure, the phrase that always comes to my mind is “Failure is not the end of success, success is not the end of failure.” As a person asking “whats next?”, i reply “Que sera, sera”.. what will be , will be.

So I have come to end of my talk and as bugs bunny says “THATS ALL FOLKS”.

Whats the Mean(ing)

This post is dedicated to all the stories , articles and mythologies tales that revolve around the idea of "You cannot have both Money and Happiness"

Since ancient times, many tales have explored the idea that Money and Happiness are two separate beings. One cannot exist near the other. If one person has a lot of money, you can be sure he/she will not be as happy as the person who is less bestowed than him/her.

In Hindu mythology, we have a tale, that the Goddess Lakshmi(God of wealth) was always fighting with the Goddess Saraswathi(Goddess of Knowledge). Each one claimed herself to be more important that the other(In this respect, Goddess or not, it is the same[:)]).

But lets take an objective look in this highly materialistic world?

A person who has wealth, doesn't need to be educated. We have innumerable examples of such people. Once a person has wealth or has found a perennial source for it, one would think that they would be the happiest person ever. But in real life it is not so. And the reason being Greed. The parasite that feeds on itself. Makes people want more.

One is termed as having everything if he/she has money. But there are several cases where this is not true. Infact, i havent seen any person who is wealthy and says "Thats enough for me. I do not want more".

How much "Means" is Meaningful? What is excess? What is sufficient?

Likewise, the opposite exists as well. Its a common vision that when you think of a professor, you always associate low income, high knowledge and little satisfaction with him/her. Why? Because we were raised up listening to stories of poor people who were unhappy and craved money? Because we believe in the mythological tales?
NO. I believe its because of what we see. A person who is bent on gaining knowledge regards money as just a means of survival. His/her mind is working on a different plane and to them, money is a frivolous creation of this world. Not worthy of pursuit.

How many of us know a knowledgeable person who is rich? Even if we do, its count would always be less that the number of people we know, who without education have more money.

Why is it that people are never able to find a balance? Why cannot we be aiming for a balance of the two.

Sufficient means and knowledge enough to live a meaningful life?
I believe that is the combo we need to be heading for.
Otherwise...What the Mean(ing) of it?

Where is the Cradle,Mom?

This post is dedicated to all the child/infant/teenager kids on the street/trains/subways.

On my way to office, I take the metro rail. On this fine sunny day, the train was not as crowded as it usually is. I was glad i could find a seat. A couple of stops later, a family got in the train. A mom, and her 3 kids. Cute little things. One had a woolen hat on her head with a long rope coming out, another had a hoopla in her hand and one had a aluminum plate and a running nose.

They walked around the coach frolicking around, looked around and decided on a good spot and started performing..

The girl with the hoopla, passed the hoop through her thin body, moving it from her head and pulling it out of her legs,
the one with the woolen hat, started dancing, or rather tried to dance as only a 5-6 yrs can, and the boy started doing somersaults, all the while the mother was beating the tin plate with a stick to give a background music.
After their performance was over, they went over to the seated people(it wasn't a rush hour, so the train was reasonable filled up), with their hands outstretched and a pleading look in their eyes.

This made me feel so damn sad, to look at those young kids, begging at such a age, with the encouragement of their mother, their innocence being put to use to make money. I don't think they realized what they were being made to do, their only understanding would have been that it was what was asked of them by their mother.

Begging for oneself is one thing, but being asked to beg especially by such young souls is altogether a different thing. At an age when they should have all the love and affection and be carefree about the vagaries of the world, they were thrown headfirst into the fight for their survival.

At such times one may wonder, where has the childhood gone for these kids? Where is the cradle in which they would feel safe, where is the hand that rocks the cradle to make the kids go to sleep, and not to break it.

These scenarios bring sharply into my mind , the dialogues and the scenes from the movie "Traffic Signal", which portrays that even begging is an art and a fledging business. A business conducted on traffic signals, roadsides and on trains, where the beggars are the puppets and the puppeteer is hiding somewhere else. After the movie I have noticed a considerable change in the attitude of the people towards beggars. They are most hesitant to think of them as a beggar and more as a crook out to rob them. But if that crook happens to be a young kid with outstretched arms and big innocent eyes, one had to have a hard heart not to give in.

Where are these children's rights to live? Right to education, right to eat, right to play? Are these rights a commodity too? One can have enough and the other cannot? Is this the way we should treat our future generations? Is this the life we envisage for our successors?

Perhaps the time for the cradle is gone, and a person fights for his/her existence the second he/she is born. Perhaps the cradle has been broken....

Work Etiquettes

Hello everyone... after a long time I am posting and this is not really a post as much as a POST-IT post.

Recently, I made some faux pas in office regarding etiquettes and although they were not major, I would like to avoid any further misdemeanors.

I would like all those who read this post to comment about some good work etiquettes that everyone should follow at work, personal incidents and what ABSOLUTELY NOT TO DO at work.

Hope I will get lots of replies... Cheers.

Independent India-In Shackles

So, today is India's 64th Independence Day. But do I feel independent?
It is a big fat NO!!!

We have just ousted the Britishers, but kept their legacy. They ruled India with a divide and conquer policy and they left that behind when they exited.
Even today, we are a "secular" country, but only in paper.

The daily papers are filled with incidents that clearly spell out the internal strifes India is involved in. The words " Unity in Diversity" that symbolizes India has become questionable. With every small patch of land claiming to become a distinct state based on the language, it is pretty clear what most of India feels, i.e "We are different, make a different state for us".

Is this the unity that was envisioned by the Founding Fathers of India?
Recently, I read in a news that India has dropped 2 notches on an index which ranks countries based on the transparency of their government. The CWG scandal which I am sure you must be aware of if your an Indian, had rocked the very foundation of our country, and our PM calmly says "Keep shut till the Games. We need to project a good image to others"
The government alone is not to blame because I accept that it cannot function properly if it is filled with people WE the "aam janta" elects.
If our decision is wrong , we surely cannot blame the Gov.

But it does seem clear that the current trend in Indian Politics is get more money, get more power and dont bother about us, the "stupid aam aadmi".

With each state proclaiming "The names of the shops in their state should be written bigger in the state language and then in English or Hindi. Yeah right, thats unity isnt it? With TN buses always stopping outside the city of Bang while all others go into the city is unity right!!!
People's refusal to learn the national language apart from the state language is unity, right !!! The riots in Kashmir, parallel the riots in Gujarat.

I have stopped reading newspaper because I KNOW nothing good and happy is ever present in it. Its all politics, crimes and a mix of both sometimes.

With the queen refusing to attend the games breaking a 40 years old tradition, world class players shying away from the CWG games, to our own ministers saying that the CWG should fail, India is having an Identity crisis. Its carefully portrayed and flimsy exterior image is crumbling and revealing the hideous creature racked with corruption, bribery and injustice. If the CWG games has done one thing good till now, is to bring out the rampant corruption and greed of our chosen elite.

But forget the Politicians for a moment, what about us "Aam Aadmi".
People refuse to accept one into their society unless he/she knows the local language. Is knowing the national language not enough? When asked they say "No you're in . You have to know ". I accept that it is good to know the local language, but this alienation is uncalled for. They are disrespecting the national language. That is not unity, thats Diversity in a Forced Unity, in a sense.

I do not know that our founding fathers had envisioned when they decided to create Linguistic States, but I am sorry to say that 6 decades later, their plan is backfiring like hell.

I have but written just a bird's eye view of the problems by India but that alone makes my blood boil.

Should I still be a "Proud Indian"? Should I stand up when I hear the National Anthem?

The Independent India is just a ruse. Its still in shackles now because of its own people rather than foreigners.

ReTry/ReStart/ReSpawn/ReView/ReWind/ReBirth/ReLoad/ReLive/ReDo/ReMake/ReTurn

As you can see from the heading, adding a "Re" to the beginning of another word, has a lot of meaning direct and indirect. I will try to elaborate on those aspects here.

Let me give you a background though.
The idea for this post started when I was having some difficulty with a piece of software. I had (un)installed it several times but the game didn't work. Finally out of frustrations and anger I switched off the laptop and then restarted it. And Voila! the game worked fine now.
This incident make me think... A restart has so much power. And that idea snowballed into something much more inherent.. a restart is always good for us.

A restart( i will use this term to mean all similar terms) is a way to say.."I learned from my mistakes, let me start again with more wisdom" or
"Let me set things right , that I did wrong in the first try" or "Let me do something else and see what happens"

Everyone in their life reaches 2-3 stages when they are too much loaded up. They become slow, tired, and wish for a new lease to life. A restart/rebirth is what is required to forget/leave behind the travesties of the previous stage/try/attempt and to move on with less baggage and more wisdom.

For the believers of Reincarnation, restart applies too. It is the restart of the soul as a new person.

However, a restart inherently is difficult. One simply cannot let go of everything one has worked towards at a whim. It is a difficult decision to make in any scenario. As a gamer I simply hate to be killed and respawned with none of the powerful weapons I had amassed in the last life. Its the same with life. We have too many memories, links, attachments that one would simple hate to see broken.

Some might think "Giving up now and trying again is equivalent to failure. All the work will be a waste.", but in my humble opinion it surely is not so.
A restart doesn't signify failure, it signifies acceptance of that fact that we did something wrong and are willing to make it right again, even if it means starting all over again.

Do we have the courage to add a "Re" to our beginning?