Being A Toastmaster

Today, I compered a meeting for the first time in my life i.e. I was the Toastmaster in the local toastmasters meeting. And not surprisingly, I chose 'solitude' as the theme of the meeting. I think I did the job fairly well. Following are the comments I got, after the meeting got over.

Very well conducted meeting. You were very well prepared. Really enjoyed your insights.
- Divya Goel

Well conducted meeting! I quite liked your introductions. Well done!
- Deepak Menon

Congratulations. Splendid job & extremely courageous - Good on you.
- Vikram Mall

Well prepared. Good transitions. The 'solitude' theme was integrated well with the proceedings -made us reflect on our own attitude to solitude as well.

Good debute toastmastery. Good command over the meeting. Keep it up.

Mazaa aa gaya dost! You were able to add laughter lines to your role. Kudos!
- Sachin

These comments are by fellow toastmasters who cared to give their comments in writing. I hope that I keep giving splendid performances in the future.

Au Revoir

Inanimate World

As I am growing older, though only 23 now, I am becoming more and more convinced about the folly of existence. Why do we actually take birth? Many would argue that it’s the law of nature. Entities come and entities go but life goes on. And what about the life itself? What if there was no life in whatsoever form – no bacteria, no animals, no homo sapiens i.e. what if there was an Inanimate World?

Daily millions of workers rich and poor alike mechanically get up in the morning and go to their workplaces. They work hard and if they are not egotists and are charitable enough, make others also work hard. They all work for that ultimate reward – recognition and money. I could have also said recognition or money, but that would have been meaningless. Why do you need money? – to get recognition among your peers, in your society and the scope is endless. Now, why one does want recognition? – to earn and multiply his/her income. This sequence of events is interminable.

Man’s thirst for making big bucks can never be quenched. Who doesn’t want to be a millionaire and if possible a billionaire? I would love to be one and every day if I have a twinkle in my eyes when I go to work that is actually a dream sparkling inside me, which urges me every moment to go that extra mile. And this is nothing but hope!! The world moves on hope. Hope is certainly not bad but what if your hopes are never realized? What if you spend your whole life doing nothing but work and only work and still in the end you are not yet a millionaire? You are still living that lowly and miserable life that you were living 50 years ago. Would you then say that your life was well lived and was actually worth living? Would you be having that gratification at your deathbed of knowing that if you were asked to once again re-live your life, you would gladly accept it?Making money and becoming a millionaire was just one of myriad billions of hopes and ambitions, dreams and desires. But I can safely say that this would come out on top :)

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I recently read a book – ‘The Power And The Glory’ by Graham Greene. It’s about a whisky priest who was running from the law, for it was illegal for any priest to stay in that particular country. The name whisky priest implies a dishonest priest. Every priest in the country had already fled, except the two. One had married and stayed back but was stripped of his capacity as a priest. Another also married but he did not abandon his profession. He was an outcast in his own land. For 6 years he kept running from the law, always living on charity and often with an empty stomach. For 6 years he kept baptizing the new born and holding seminars, all clandestinely. In the beginning, wherever he went he was always welcome. Children and elders alike respected him. They would provide him with food and bare essentials. But when the police started the real hunt, things went sour for him. A hostage would be picked up from every village and in case of any intelligence that the whisky priest had ever set his foot there and helped by the villagers, the hostage would be shot dead. Naturally, the priest lost all respect from the people. Towards the end, as the priest started his journey to the eternal safety of the adjoining country, somehow he was lured into the trap set by the police and was caught. The priest had a daughter.

The priest had died discontented. Before he was shot dead by the firing squad, he had only one remorse. He could not do anything for his daughter.

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The book is certainly a good read.

The point I am trying to drive home is that the priest was not disconsolate and distraught for he was unable to make his confessions to another priest but because he was deserting his daughter when she most needed him. He was leaving her to be a vagabond. And he too died without any gratification.

So, at your deathbed, if you have a feeling of underachievement, was your life really worth living? Coming back to where I started from, surely this world would be a better place if it were inanimate.

Then of course, there would be nobody to witness that but at least there would also be nobody to suffer, to live a life of misery interspersed with momentary happiness and carrying an air of farcical hope.

Au Revoir

Vroom @ 110 Kmph

Sundays are always meant for rest and that is what I did most today. I got up at 10:30 in the morning or was it still morning :) I dont know why but since morning I am feeling good and I am happy. Again, I dont have a particular reason to be happy about but then I don't even need one! Revel in your happiness as long as it is there.

And the story continues. Till lunch, I played my favorite game NFS. After lunch, I again went for a long slumber. This sleep is also a very funny habit. The more you sleep the more you feel that you haven't slept enough and to make up for the loss, you go for another round of siesta. And when you really don't sleep enough, even then you feel the same way. So, why cut on your precious sleeping time? Atleast this way you wont feel guilty of scissoring your natural sleeping hours :)

I got up around 6 in the evening and took a shower - another of those Sunday luxuries i.e. taking bath so late. Now if asked, what is that one activity I hate doing but eventually I have to do it? - unhesitatingly I would say - to shave my beard!! So, I have decided to altogether stop shaving my beard i.e. from today I will go to a barber's shop and get it done there. And today was the inaugural day for this new development. I got over with the 'shaving' business around 7 and then went for a drive - another one of my few modes to relax, as you would already know by now if you have been following this blog :)

I came home around 7:40. Had my dinner. And then a friend called up and asked me to accompany him for a walk. I dont know why but I asked him to get his bike's key along. It would seem weird but honestly I have never liked riding a bike. Instead, I love to be the pillion rider. We had no plans to go afar but then we went all the way to NFC. On the way, he rode his bike @ 110 Kmph and that is a feat for his 125 cc bike. If there was one person who was really enjoying the ride, for there were only two of us, it was certainly me. Winter has almost arrived here and the chilly winds just made the ride worth while. On top of that, I wasn't even wearing a helmet. Sheer madness! Once in NFC, we went to this pub, Pebble Street. Till the moment I entered the pub, I had made up my mind that I was not going to have any liquor as I was just not in the mood. But once inside, I ordered my favorite cocktail, Bloody Mary. I often wonder about the origin of this peculiar name for this drink. We stayed there for an hour. The return journey was again a joyride for me and this time the winds were even chiller, so all the more fun. Spare a thought for my friend who was riding the bike in those biting winds :)

I would say today was the perfect Sunday. Loads of rest with great fun. I wish everyday of our lives be spent as if it were a Sunday.

Au Revoir

Ques. Of Buying A Laptop - II

It has been exactly a week since I wrote the prequel to what I am going to write now. Apparently, the reason for this laziness happens to be my new lappy! As I told you earlier I am a pc game freak and I play only racing games involving cars. NFS, Need For Speed for those who are not familier with the gaming jargon, happens to be my favorite. My old pc i.e. the desktop pc could only play till NFS - Hot Pursuit 2. Not surprising because it has only 555 Mhz processor speed, 192 MB RAM and 16 MB VRAM. Often I would dream of happy days when I would be playing NFS - Underground & NFS - Underground 2 :) And the story goes that a week ago I got my hands on the latter one & since then, whenever I would start doing something on my lappy, inevitably I would start playing the game and forget all about blogging.

In the morning I went to my french class and returned from there at 10 . As soon as I reached home I threw myself on the bed and since then I have been sleeping like a log. I just got up a few minutes ago. There's nobody home but me and I dont feel like cooking something for myself. It would seem funny to you but the first thought that came to my mind when I woke up was to resume my game from where I had left it last night. Surprisingly, as soon as I opened my lappy to do the same I realised that I dont have that same urge to play the game, The Game, which has always been my favorite. I have spent sleepless nights just to complete earlier versions of NFS. And now when I have the latest or say just prior to the latest version, which is NFS - Most Wanted, I find myself bereft of all the enthusiasm and excitement to play that anymore. I think this is what you call 'transitions' in life. Something, which was so dear to you a minute ago has just been thrown out in the backyard and out of your conscious mind. It doesn't just concern you anymore. And I have seen the same thing or rather phenomena happening to human beings also. Person(s), who was so dear to you that you couldn't stop thinking about him/her all the time, who meant everything to you suddenly becomes a stranger to you. You don't care a penny if anything happens to him/her. And even if you do, I think that is more superficial rather than genuine. Wait a minute! this post is meant to be a sequel to my earlier one and so it will be..

I have just given another reason why did I go for buying a lappy. Of all the reasons, there is one most important reason, which I think will lose its essence if I told you that. So, let it remain a secret only. And hey! don't let your dirty thoughts becloud this lovely post. That secret has nothing to do with that. hehe!

In my college days, I used to get a pocket money of Rs. 3,000 per month, which included everything right from my mess and food bill to my phone bill, washerman's bill to course books, which I rarely bought and all the miscellaneous expenses, and I used to manage that pretty comfortably. My first job pays me Rs. 14,000 in hand per month and still that is not enough for me. On top of that I bought a lappy worth Rs. 57,000!! Now, comes the part how did I finance all that? To cut a long story short, I took a personal loan.

But getting that loan is not a short story. Have you ever realized that until you were in college or until you were completing your studies, you always depended on your parents for money. In my case, had my pocket money in college had been Rs. 4,000 or even Rs. 5000, I wouldn't have objected to that at all. And now, when I have started earning, I dont like taking even a penny from my parents. I think this is again one of those 'transitions', which come up in everyone's life though everyone may not realize that. Every newspaper you read, every TV channel you flick to, every radio station you hook to, every billboard you spot on the roadside and you will find a swarm of financial institutions bleating around and imploring you to take loan from them. You name a cause and they have a loan just tailored for you. Ofcourse, this is where the story just starts..

I thought getting a loan would be a cakewalk. The funny part is you can always get a loan but the trouble is getting it according to your terms. I thought all that was needed was to just shortlist the model that I wanted to buy, produce some documents and post-dated cheques and the lappy would be mine. But they didn't want to see only some documents, they wanted to see every document that I could lay my hands on, and not only about myself but also about my family as if instead of me, it is my family that was seeking the loan. In one case, I had to be working for atleast an year and in another, for atleast two years. Only then they would consider the case. As at that time I had been working for only 4 months, if there was one uniformity in the criteria for granting a loan, that was that I had to have a house of my own!! Now, how ridiculous is that? How a 23 year old boy, just out of college and working for only 4 months is supposed to have a house of his own? So, in that case my parents should own one, who fortunately do. Getting to the gist of this story, I finally got the loan. According to the terms, I paid a downpayment of Rs. 30,000, which my mom has lent me :) And I have to pay Rs. 4,750 every month for 6 months to the finance company, which I have already done in the form of post-dated cheques. Concerning the loan from my mom, I will be giving her Rs. 5000 every month. So, for the next 6 months I am going to be a pauper as I will be left with only Rs. 4,250 for my personal expenses.

Even after spending so much I am happy. And this is the state one should always be in. Tonight I and my elder sister will go for a movie and I seriously hope this one to be good unlike the last one, which was a total crap.

Au Revoir