THE PURPOSE

The Purpose

There are times in our lives, when few things don't turn up the way we would want them to. Few things are in our control, where as few are destined to happen.

Few events are very sudden, unexpected and not to that of our liking & acceptance.
Few losses r unbearable and never to be compensated with anything else.
These are the shocks we live with. And as long as we are breathing we have to live with it, deal with it.
But then, there is THE SUPREME AUTHORITY above us all.
And HE has sent us with a REALIZATION.

HE says: "I sent you in this world as a completely detached individual with your own exclusive identity. I know what you are capable of. And thus, everyone of you are individually & respectively well-equipped to steer and drive your life."

Thus the realization which we all need to become aware of.
Implies - we have been sent here, in this universe, for a specific purpose.
A very important role to play.
The purpose to make complete & apt use of the life-years assigned to us.
The purpose to keep thinking & doing something, to make this world a better place to live, for the people who will come after us.
The purpose to devote our self to the good of every life which is around us and connected to us.
The purpose to gain & earn absolute knowledge whatever we can, by the way of learning from elders & gurus.
The purpose to move towards completeness.

And thus it's important that we realise sooner the "why" of our life.
Everyone has their own "why", but important is to know and understand this big question of life, as soon as possible.

We have our own separate identity.
We meet beautiful, wonderful people in this journey of life.
On the way, either we leave them or they leave us. But the real purpose of our lives, must never be lost.
We have full right to cry and feel bad, but then there is a time, there is a moment; when we need to recollect ourselves, brush off our tears, look around, get up and get back to the job for which we are here.
We need to find our music back.

The sooner we decide to collect & gather our shattered pieces, better its for our own life and also for people who are looking at us, towards us, with great hopes.

By - Sanjay Jogani
Mumbai.India.
sanjay-jogani.blogspot.com

Disclaimer
Mention about any person, place, event, picture, image or logo; is just for reference purpose to enhance the essence of writing for better presentation. It's not intended to trespass the rights of the original owners.

RAINS - BLESSINGS FROM HEAVENLY ABODE

Rains.....The blessings from Heavenly abode

Rains, Monsoon, showers…..

these words, by themselves generate a big sigh of relief, sudden burst of excitement, enthusiasm from within oneself and the smiles and laughter, irrespective of the biological clock one is tuned to. 

Actually every season, our country is blessed with, all are immense joy to be soaked into.
Every season eventually reaches its zenith, paving way to the next and simultaneously every life on the earth awaits the change with extreme passion, desire and urge.

The cold winter paves way for the flowery spring, the spring for the hot summer, the summer for the wet monsoon, the fall of autumn follows & then again back to the Winter.
The funniest part is, an irony as we say, we experience the peak in each of the season and desperately wait for the next to follow for a relief, and the same goes on for every turn of the change.

Monsoon, is my flavour of the time. 

Of course, besides the most romantic season of the lot, the season is dreaded for it's share of thunder showers with wild breeze, high tides, floods, landslides, tsunamis etc.
But nevertheless, the season, as is, continue to remain the darling of every living being on the earth.
The hot & scorching summer, which precedes the rains, not only boils up the earth, but the fiery fire also raises the temperatures of the lives, above & beneath the mother earth.

The man of today’s, is already a much stressed up commodity with its share of hardships, responsibilities, commitments & expectations.
He somehow tries in vain to keep creating magic by juggling & balancing all his rings to garner what he wants the most, the attention. But eventually, keeps dropping one to save another and lands up crashing.
Over & above, these disappointments, the extremities of heat outside his body fuels up his miseries.
And thus, when he sees passing clouds over his head, he rises in hope.
And as he feels few droplets of water on his body, his fingers stretches to feel the wet skin. And the sweet fragrance of the sand of the first rain radiating from the earth beneath enlivens the cells of his nose, otherwise dead.
He suddenly feels lighten up, as all the baggage of sorrows, miseries, anger; seem to get dissolved under the pouring sky.
He feels ONE with everyone around him. He starts loving every life, which shares the same joy as his, with every drop of rain on them.

He seems to be so relieved and freed to start looking at the sky,
..at the bathed up buildings,
..at the dancing leaves as if competing to take the most share of the blessings from above,
..at the swinging branches & the smiling trees holding them,
..at the children crazily jumping in the puddles,
..at the rhythmic running of the people with the umbrellas,

..at the small palms stretched out from the oversized raincoats of the school returning kids, trying to grab and store rain in their palms and feel it over their faces,
..at the people running out of their houses, on the streets, to be a part of the heavenly sight,
..at few elderly people sitting in their chairs of their balconies, getting smiles back on their faces, as if after years,

..at the honking and screeching sound from the moving cars, with half shut window panes, non-working wiper blades, and drivers struggling to keep their glasses clean.

For few of the travellers, it’s like getting late to reach to their destinations and for the few, the world has suddenly come to a halt;
For few it’s to avoid getting dirty in the muddy puddles and rains, whereas for few, it feels like a medicinal rush, draining out all their diseases and sins;
For few it’s the moment to shed tears of sorrows behind the running waters from above and for few it’s crying in happiness behind the same waters;

Here, I am, from a distant window of my room, getting soaked into all these sights emerging in front of me.
The feeling emerged in me, as if I know all these people. As if I know what they are passing through, what they are going through. I could relate myself fully to their part of joys and unhappiness. Their tears brought tears to my eyes and their smiles made those tears laugh.
And suddenly, It’s like, struck as a lightening thought,
“THIS TOO SHALL PASS”
 This moment of utter exhilaration, the life of these emotions, is here just for a short time. Just for a while.
Then, for what are we here on this earth?
The seasons never miss their virtue of right timing & extreme intensity. They are utmost sincere to fulfil their part of the duties and rightly deliver what they are expected to.
With every passing of the seasons, our hairs are getting greyer, the skin is getting crumpled, the vision is getting blurrier, the hands and legs are getting weaker, the brain cells are getting degenerated.
We can’t be just staring as a mere spectator to these wonderful blessings.
We can’t just stand in utter dumbness & blinded to these giving.
In fact, we need to be an active part of this changing phenomenon.
We need to be the change, ourselves.
We need to help rekindle the lives around us.
Few of the lives around us are living dead. We don’t need to wait for any seasons or occasions to bring them to life.
Let’s gather & store, a part of the attribute of every season, in our hearts and distribute the happiness and smiles to all, in all seasons.
It may can be mere extending one’s hand to reach to the other,
..may be just a matter of sharing a little time together.
..may be just a matter of silent listening for a while.
..may be just a matter of crying together, laughing together, celebrating together.

With a cup of tea in my hand, my eyes staring out of my window & my mind experiencing an absolute silence in the noisy surroundings, I suddenly felt the soft touch on my shoulder. I could feel warm wetness on my shirt, only to turn back and astonished to find my childhood friend, moved away from each other years back, standing there with his arms stretched in a rare combination of smiles and tears in his eyes.
I was overwhelmed, in awe with strange excitement & pounding heart beats. All the emotions experienced in the past few moments came rushing to the fore. With the tears in my eyes, I stretched my arms to hug him tight, so as never to be parted again and just in time, with a loud thunder & thud, heavy rains started pouring again.

And there, both of us rushed back towards my window, stretching our hands out and laughed at each other, as if, this moment of pouring rains, enlivened all the memories of our times together. :-)

By –

Sanjay Jogani

15th-June-2018 (revised & updated)

Mumbai. India.

Email - Sanjay.blogger.1210@gmail.com

Visit - sanjay-jogani.blogspot.com/in

Disclaimer
Mention about any person, place, event, picture, image or logo; is just for reference purpose to enhance the essence of writing for better presentation. It's not intended to trespass the rights of the original owners.

Let's not let our dreams die.....

Let’s not let our dreams die…

The History has witnessed, turning of years into decades & decades into centuries. But the speed, the pace with which we are witnessing the passing of the time since the beginning of 21st Century, has never ever been experienced before.
It's like, harder we try to grab it, hold it; faster it slips out of our hand.

Somehow, I personally feel, we have been blessed because of the slot of time frame of life allotted to us to play our part, to be able to enact our role & contribute our bit in the vast ocean of time, whose every passing moment adds to the wealth of History.
It somehow does mark & carries a significance & stamps an everlasting impression in the form of “My Life”; which of course is unique in its own way & doesn’t carry any similarity or comparisons, what so ever, with any other breathing soul above the earth & below the sky.

The “experiences” are generally “Grey” in its expression. It’s these shades of Grey which adds richness & beauty to every unit of time an experience in made of, making it a moment to treasure & cherish for.
Amongst us, who share the same platform of time frame, having lived out four decades of our journey, would most certainly agree to have seen more of what life had to offer, in its all possible colours, in its most versatile form.

I somehow have always believed that we are the passengers passing through the tunnel of transition. It is in this journey through the transition, we have experienced & continue to experience, the demands & expectations being raised & pressed, to be responded to, to be fulfilled, to be lived up to, to be met with.
It is during this journey, we were & are expected to hold, respect & support, which quite efficiently we have, the two generations above & two below us. If one sees through our times, carefully having a re-look on every growing year, may infer, that it was during these times in the near history the seeds in the form of stress on education, to perform, to compete, to prove got implanted.
Yes, it’s true that most of us, in our times, may not have had a clear vision , a well cut out goal, the idea, the plan to implement & execute; but were surely had got tuned into the race mode. Due to narrow outlook of & within the society in existence during those times, lack of awareness beyond one’s own world & deprivation of the global touch, the best which was expected from & out of us, was to get hold of a decently paid job, to inherit the family business, if any, or else were expected to do something worthwhile which would result in optimum use of our time & energy and help us make reasonable earning.

Due to limited resources and limited access to the world beyond, the thinking outside the box never happened. We started believing in working harder and the word “success” got quite easily & conveniently tagged to that with earning bucks.
Again, with no offence to our generations above, most of us got used to the mediocrity of life. Not that we were not reading about the world of dreams outside the wall of our well protected home, not that we did not dream about those dreams, but we couldn’t leave or bet on our atmosphere of convenience, to grow beyond.
We did have talent, we did have loads of creativity, we did have wings of imagination to fly with, but what we lacked was a long term, well crafted, well guided road map, to be able to have watered these plants into a fully grown tree. 

Fortunately, in the world, less demanding, most of us got settled into our respective lives, trying to balance out every aspect of being a responsible citizen, a responsible human.
But somewhere down within, we always carried the light of unfinished dreams. We never missed an opportunity to re-live those dreams with our eyes closed. Little did we know & anticipate the speed of passing times. And the rapidly changing times with increasingly clearer global view, struck a realisation of having missed few of the opportunities, few precious years, of our times, by not able to risk our comfort zones.
By then we already had the gen-next, our children, the young brigade gazing towards us, being responsible for them.
This did not seem like the time for us to turn back, trying to run in the pursuit to achieve & grab those unfinished dreams, to fulfil.
Not only are we responsible & accountable towards our present duties but are also expected to be the architect of the life of our children, whom we wouldn’t like to get imprisoned into a close restricted world.

Well aware of this, we being not able to carry the weight of our own dreams & desires, and in order not to lose sight of them, put them onto the shoulders of our children, the Gen-Next.
And here begins the conflict.
The frustration of our under-achievement gets reflected in our expectations from our children. We fight our lives out, trying to make them convinced about what’s right & what’s wrong for them, purely from our point of view based on our experiences. We enter into debates & arguments, resulting in bitterness, for not being able to penetrate through the wall of resistance.
Most of the times, what we perceive as a resistance, is merely, trying to dent into the wall of our own expectations. In being biased with our self view point, we fail to understand & touch their psyche.

As I said earlier, everyone is unique in their own way, in the way one puts use of their senses to experience the world around them. No one can live the experience of the other and thus can’t feel the emotions attached to it with the same frequency, intensity & depth.
Today’s generation have, in front of them, a pool of opportunities, choices & options to choose from. They have various medium of access to gather data, analyze them & put them into proper order & perspective to move towards their goal.
Unlike us, they are sharper, with much clear goal & vision & have means to achieve the same.
Unlike us, they not only dream with their eyes closed but chase them with their eyes open.
They are uniquely talented & having high intelligent quotient.
They don’t need to be compared with any other brains of their age. What is needed, is, to assure & ensure them that we are there, with them, for them, any time they need to turn to us for our love.
Just this sense of security, belief in self & elevated level of self confidence would make them fly over oceans in their full strength, rhythm & harmony. 

This mutual harmony would save us lots of our time & energy, at home & at work, to be able to pursue our desires & wishes justifying the notion that “Today is the first day of the rest of our life….”

Sanjay-jogani.blogspot.com: The Social Death....

Sanjay-jogani.blogspot.com: The Social Death....

The Social Death....

The Social death

In the early 1990s’, the first time, Indian economy was left open to the masses.
We can say, that was one of the first initiatives by India government to step into the experience of much bigger, much profitable global markets.
Till then, the first four and a half decades of Indian governance was mainly based on much restricted, much controlled business environment.

The initiative to decontrol, let loose was of course welcome by one & all. The Indian manufacturing sector suddenly had an easy access to the global demand, and be a part & a contributor into the global economic system.
And at the same time, the world raised its head to glance towards India as a much stronger and potentially dormant consumer & user of/for their products.

The nation, of course took a few years to absorb & get used to the changed equations of the world markets.
Along with the commerce & economics, it brought a radical change in the social configuration of Indian masses.
The influx of foreign goods, technology and an easy access to adapt, use & consume, the lifestyle related goods, created a sense of awe, amusement & surprise in the Indian social circle.
The financially blessed class could put their hands on the latest productions, almost at the same time with their foreign counterparts.

Besides the obvious craze & adaptations, came the biggest revolution for the people of India in the form of CONNECTIVITY.
It can be well claimed that the 2nd half of the decade of 90s’, made the world much smaller a space for us. It suddenly made the actual geographical distance seem to matter lesser & lesser.
Yes, here we are talking about the freedom to get connected, liberalization of the telecommunication world, internet & world-wide-web.
Though it made it’s late entry into India, was already a phenomenon, being made optimum use of, by developed economies of the West.

Now, leaving the last 2 decades behind us, let’s step into our todays’, the current times into the 2nd decade of 21st Century.

If we ask almost anybody in India, randomly, irrespective of caste, creed, color, religion, education, social class, financial standings; about their view point of last 20 years; are sure to get an unanimous response in the form of various steep, extreme, sudden changes being experienced by one & all, in the last a decade or so., precisely in the last 7-8 years.
Here we refer to the changes in the form of actually experiencing, in person, the Darwinism theory & principles of “Struggle for survival” & “Survival for the fittest”.
The Indian Socio-economic system has experienced all the vulnerabilities which came with the liberalization, as a package. The recessionary phase became a more frequent cycle, instead of once upon a time story.
But the biggest impact which struck the nation, was the unexpected change in the lives of the people. Liberalization did bring a change in the technical aspect, but without the people being made ready to embrace the same.
It was like too quick, too sudden.
The mentality, the attitude, the acceptance, the understanding was too immature to touch & feel the change through your hands. It went on like a slide-show which keeps you amused all throughout and not giving enough time to actually fix your senses & get attached to it.

As we know, one needs to start from kindergarten & spend the next 10 years, under gradual, systematic, cumulative advance to reach to the first competitive level of Std- X.
Here the Indian mass was exposed to & promoted much faster & thrown into the highly advanced times, with much less experience & maturity to actually deserve the stand.

Along with it came the increased polarization of the people in every sense of the term.
Most of us, I believe, must have experienced through the late night sweet stories from our parents & Grand-Parents about their times, where the words of virtue as “trust” , “security”, “hard-work”, “honesty”, “responsibility”, “adaptability” , “patience” ; always found repetitive mentions.
But frankly, these mentions are getting rarer with every passing day, today.
The trust is lost within families. Nobody can claim & feel fully secured. Hard-work is replaced by smart/quick work.
Honesty doesn’t earn money.
Nobody wants to take responsibilities on their shoulders and be accounted.
Patience is the hardest thing to put into practice & thus adaptability has become a rare case model.
The entire focus and efforts are being applied to earn more & more money & power to keep oneself an edge above all, to be happier, to feel more secured, and to maintain one’s social status.

It’s not bad to earn money, more money; but the compromises being done & means to achieve the same has forced man to stoop to an embarrassing level.
The principles & ethics are the matter being ridiculed and anybody referring to such terms is being considered a hypocrite. 
The innocent, immature, ill-experienced mind of a 10-12 year old in the late 90s’ was exposed to the lure of mobile phones & internet. Suddenly the world for them became of multiple choices and dreams generated to achieve the same, at any cost.

One morning, one day, and things changed for them.
The simple rustic laid-back child, the emerging youth started dreaming of reaching to the moon. And at the same time, came the realization that it’s a race and he/she needs to be one of the front-liners to touch the winning line.
THE RACE IS ON.
Winning at all cost attitudes is getting stronger.
Compromises being done.
Rules are broken.
Short cuts being discovered & implemented.
The innocence of the childhood met SUDDEN death. The physical senses got exposed to the medium much faster & much deeper than actual inner elevation of thoughts, education, action & thus the wisdom.
The medium of latest gadgets implanted in them the new level of desire, greed, dreams beyond the practical limits of nature. And the medium took complete control of their controlling system and made them increasingly non-sensitive towards much required social etiquettes, responsibilities & behaviors.
And this, somehow, I believe resulted in frequent recent non-human incidents of suicides, rapes, killings.
The fact that, the happenings like these are being considered at its peak, in recent times, shows the source , the root , around a decade and a half back, when the innocent minds were infused with various forces and made vulnerable.
I consider the late 90s’ as the time, the tipping point, of the socially destructive phenomena which we all are experiencing today.

Friends, the science, the technology, the evolution is not bad.
It’s a blessing for every living being on earth, if being used at the right time, with care & with respect to the nature around us.
Before the changes are being applied to serve the mankind, why not the social system, the biggest beneficiary, be made aware, made educated, and made to understand the pros & the cons?

Change is good. Change is welcomed. But the people, for whom the change is being brought about, should be the matter of subject on the first hand…..

#The images used are only for reference & understanding purpose and is sole proprietary right of the original owner.

The Push & Pull of life...

In the journey of passing through the life, we are being lured with many temptations. Some good, some bad. There are times when you can’t judge what’s right & what’s wrong for you. You tend to move on with the flow, the pull of the events, the pull of the people around you. But as we know & understand, nothing lasts forever. The experiences you have passed through, the actions you have taken, the behaviour you have conducted; seem to be standing at crossroads with your own self. You regret some , you embrace some , and you smile at some. The ones who create a sad feeling in within you are the ones which remain as ghost images and follow you like a shadow. It’s important to release these threads, the bindings, by making truce with the people, the events, the actions attached with such emotions. Unless you can make yourself completely detached & feel pleasantly released, you may not experience & live your life with the same passion, zeal & strongly positive emotions. The only way to break out of such negative formations, is to enter into mutually pardonable situations & make peace with the people, events & actions; responsible for such formations.

Time to Decide !!!!

Yesterday, I was driving, and the FM radio went off for few seconds. I thought, I should have an i-Pod. Then suddenly I realized that I have not used my i-Pod in last 6 months. And then more things possessed but unused, Handy-cam in last 2 years, Digi-Cam in last 2 months, DVD player in last 1 month & many more. Now I can say that I bought that Handy-cam just out of an impulse, as I have used it only once in last couple of years.
So, what’s wrong & where? When I look at myself or my friends, I can see it everywhere. We are not happy with what we have but are stressed and not happy for the things we don’t have. You have a Santro, but you want City; You have a City, but you want Skoda; just after buying a new phone, we need another one; better laptops, bigger TVs, faster cars, bigger house, more money. I mean, these examples are endless. The point is, is it actually worth?
Do we ever think if we actually need those things before we want them, buy them?
After this, I was forced to think what I need & what I don’t. May be I didn’t need this Hand- cam or the i-Pod or that DVD player. When I see my dad back at home, he has a simple BPL color TV, he doesn’t need 32”Sony LCD wall mount, he has a cell phone worth Rs 2,500. Whenever I asked him to change the phone, he always replied: It’s just a phone, I need this just for calls. Believe me, he is much happier in life than me with those limited resources & simple gadgets.
The very basic reason why he is happy with so little is that he doesn’t want things in life to make it luxurious, but he wants only those things which are making his life easier, convenient. There’s a very fine line between these two. But after looking my dad’s life-style closely, I got the point.
He needs a cell phone but not the i-Phone. He needs a TV but not the 32” plasma. He needs a car but not an expensive one.
Initially I had lot of questions.
I am earning good, still I am not happy...why ?
I have all luxuries, still I am stressed...... why ?
I had a great weekend, still I am feeling tired...... why?
I met lot of people &thought over it again and again, I still don’t know if I got the answers, but certainly figured out few things. I realized that one thing which is keeping me stressed is the stay-connected syndrome. I realized that, at home too, I am logged in on messengers, checking mails, using social network sites, and on top of that, the windows mobile is not letting me disconnected. I realized that I am spending far lesser money than what I earn, even then I am always worried about money and more money. I realized that I am saving enough money I would ever need, Still I am stressed, worried & in secured about job, salary and spendings.
May be, many people will call this approach a non-progressive attitude, but I want my life back. Ultimately it’s a single life, a day gone is a day gone. I believe, if I am not happy tonight, I’ll never be happy tomorrow morning. I finally realized that meeting friends, spending quality time with your loved ones; spending time with yourself is the most important thing. If on Sunday you are alone & you don’t have anybody to talk with, then all these luxuries of life, all this money is wasted. May be, cutting down on your requirements & wants, re-calculating your future goal in the light of today’s happiness is a worthwhile thing to do. May be selling off your Santro & buying a Honda City on EMIs is not a good idea.
I believe putting your happiness ahead of money is the choice we need to make.
I think, a lot can be said and done but what we need the most is re-evaluation of the value of happiness and time we are giving to our life and people associated with it.
Change does not Happen when Circumstances Improves......
Change happens when YOU Decide to Improve YOUR circumstances !

Sanjay-jogani.blogspot.com: "Where the mind craves for peace" **

Sanjay-jogani.blogspot.com: "Where the mind craves for peace" **

"Where the mind craves for peace" **

"PEACE of MIND"
seems we've left far behind;
Can't find it in my hind(sight);
May have lost it, in my Mind..............

The world is growing, life so fast;
In the attempt to measure, space so Vast;
Wonder when did I stop counting stars, last?
Lost track & the stars too, in the sky so overcast(Pollution)......

We are humans with a little heart & a little mind;
which leaves all other species behind;
Once,We could boast,
for d heart, which could feel & d mind, which could create; Coloring world so Pink..
Today,
Mind still creates, but the noise of destruction makes our hearts Sink......

Man today, needs a bigger space to live within;
They are eye-ing Mars sitting on the Moon;
The greed for one more home, away from home;
I would call it a "CURSE" not a "BOON"...................

In our Motherland (India), Family, culture & values
still are being hold the Highest..............
(over)ambition of building walls away from our corners;
have seen the fall of the Mightiest...............

Let our parents be the Earth & we be the Moon around them;
Our Children be the stars, shining & smiling, all around us........
With the sky so clear & hearts so near; we don't need more Jupiters;
Let we be the world & not the world for us...................

At last, I found the PEACE in my Mind;
within the FRIENDS so close & kind;
Lets stop the chase of Rat & Mouse;
And make a "HOME" out of our "HOUSE"........

The most important need of the hour is -
The requirement of sufficient food, clothing & shelter for all in India.
The focus should be right education & jobs for all concerned.
The idea should be an "all inclusive growth".
The "temples" & "mosques" are not going to help fulfill your needs & make your future brighter.
The vision of "prosperous India 2050" should be aimed at.
We all are one. India is our Mother land.
The disputes arising out of lack of understanding & communication are always created by wasted interest for their own benefit. We all need to understand that & reacting to such provocation is not going to help us or anybody., but only the people who want us to break & divide.
Be UNITED. Be TOGETHER.
Fight & voice, not only for your own self but for your country, for your people....

"feel blessed .. live life"

I've seen castles made out of sand,
Met people who believe destiny is engraved on the palm of their hands,
I've seen people change their faith,
Experienced love change into hate,
I've seen people grow younger with age,
And a bird who wouldn't fly out of an open cage,
I've seen love sold for money,
People who are devastated inside but outside they're funny,
I've seen the unicorn fall in love with the toad,
People who owned half the city have now hit the road,
I've learned to expect the unexpected,
Perfection doesn't exist, we're all defected,
Everyone cries,some just hide their tears,
They say coal turns diamond over a thousand years,
Someone may believe u are one in a million,
For others u are just another nobody in the billion.
So live life wid all that u have, cherish all ur moments Happy or Sad!! Feel blessed with what u r!! Coz Life is tooo short n we are jus here for a Moment!!