Inferiority Complex is better!!!

870th BLOG POST -->>

         

How skeptic we are whenever we are made to stand in front of the masses. We just start playing with our own fingers, rubbing our palms, controlling our smile, looking at ourselves if we are presentable, running our eyes away from the people who are directly looking into our eyes etc. Even the person with the best confidence comes with a little nervousness when he has to speak in front of the mass. I have been reading Amitabh Bachchan's blog since start and I have read many a times that even he fears when he has to present himself in front of many people. He says that before Camera starts its work, he feels as if he will mess everything but he says that as soon as camera starts, he finds himself comfortable and even 10 minutes of a scene does not terrifies his confidence. But initially even a perfectionist like him shivers. Yours and mine are officially certified. :-)

           The biggest reason of this nervousness and stage fear is not the lack of past experiences or some bad experience in past but it is an inferiority complex. Many of us might not like to say that we feel that we are inferior against others but somewhere in us, a keeda gets active as soon as it is being said to perform in vicinity of everyone. What we fear the most is the reaction of our opposite gender. A whole life gets wasted in impressing them and till death we never find that one among the other gender who remains with us in any condition. :-) But still when we are on stage, we think about their views as if if we would do something gracious, they will plant a kiss after our performance. A standing ovation does not come easily in India. Here people are more jealous and less supportive. So we should never think about what people or the opposite gender would think about us when we stand in front of all to present/speak something. Seriously!

          We, the people having inferiority complex, should at least be happy about this. This is actually positive. No? Shut Up. It is. The person with superiority complex knows that nothing can affect his performance. He is confident. But somewhere he is always in pressure to maintain his excellence. And the person who is known to be the best, perfect or ideal always try to do some ungli with their best talent to generate something unique and 8 out of 10 times, end up messing themselves. While we the people who are in the zone of inferiority have no fear. We know that people are already not expecting any miracle or grandeur from us. So even our average would surprise many and if by chance we end up doing what we never did before, we will get all the highlights while the superior one will get more anxious seeing us getting improved. Cricket is the best example. Players with lots of expectation scores 30, gets abused while with the one we have no expectation scored 20 and gets our respect. :-)

         When, for the first time, I was being said to present a PPT in my Graduation Semester 2. I was sure that I am going to get messed up with something on the stage. And hence I practiced all night. People often say that they don't understand what I speak because I speak as fast as I type and I read. :-) Did you see how I doubled my pros against a con? Haha! So I was very nervous a day before if after completing the whole presentation, the strict teacher remarks that she understood nothing it would be very demotivating. So I recorded my voice continuously in my mobile and recorded my expression on my laptop's front camera while practicing. At 5 AM in the morning, there were 45 recordings both- audio and video. The first recording of the same text ended in some 5 minutes while the 45th was of 12 minutes. This is how fast I spoke in the first attempt. And continuously sharpening myself, I ended up controlling myself up to the limit that I improved by 50%+. Next day, I was given 10 out of 10 in the presentation. :-) This is what Inferiority complex does. So don't fear because this complex helps us if we don't think of superiors. :-) Love you all.

 Thanks.

 ABHILASH RUHELA - VEERU!!! 

Nostalgia of visiting Childhood place!!!

869th BLOG POST -->>

       

  All my regular brothers and sisters here would be knowing that whenever my vacations start, rather than traveling and exploring the world, I sit at my home, in my bedroom, on my study table, switch on the lamp and keep exploring the books. That's what vacations are for me. A period allotted to read and write a lot. And once college begins, and I start missing the beautiful life I was in, I start planning with my friends/parents to go somewhere and enjoy at least for a day or even short entertainments would do. My friends, once, planned for Water Kingdom and I enjoyed a lot. Once it was Matheran, again in the beginning of the semester. Last semester, it was CST and Marine Drive. And usually, it's Inorbit Mall at least for a sake of an outing. But this vacation, I went to my childhood place- Roha and very soon, I am going to be in the abode of Shirdi. Let's see when I am heading for it. Last year I missed it because of admission process and weak plannings of my dear parents but this time I am just going to head there alone if parents will again start to interrupt. No error this time. 

           Normally, I try not to visit my childhood place(now) because all my friends have migrated to their respective cities where some are in Engineering colleges, some are doing jobs while some are miles away from India. Going there makes me feel so lonely that I fail in even reading a novel. I just feel like sleeping and I do the same. All the sleeping hours that I cut here in Mumbai, I balance there. :-) Roha is some 60 kilometers from here and its totally a Hill-station. Its a bliss environment out there and mostly in monsoon. No Lonavala, No Khandala.. that place is itself magical. But this time, though I slept for a nice time, I found time to explore the same campus which used to be our playground in childhood. As obvious, I was the naughtiest kid in my friend circle because only I used to get all the notorious ideas to trouble people, puncture cycles,motorcycles of uncles, break watchmen's stick, throw ball at the car with alarm and run away, throw condoms where the girls of my age used to roam just to know whether they know about sex in my teenage years, steal friends' underwear from their ground floor balcony and show them next day in school bus in front of all etc. :-) I kept remembering these incidents regularly for the three days I was there.

           Even today, my juniors keep talking about the fun I and my friends did in the school bus and the company premise. There was not even a single child, uncle, aunty, watchmen who wasn't our victim then. Once in tuition, I and my friend were asked to study while aunty went to hospital. We went to kitchen, opened the freeze, saw strawberries, mouth watered and we distributed it among ourselves and ate. Next day Tuition aunty humiliated us by saying,"Beta aap logon ko khaana hi tha toh hamein bataate. Main de deti. Aisi neechta ki umeed nahi thi mujhe apne students se". That was the last time I ate strawberry until this year when one friend gave me when she returned from Panchgani. This humiliation hurt our ego. Next time, we saw that aunty had a beautiful set of 6 cups. She used to drink tea while teaching us in one of them. We thought lets spoil this set of 6. While getting out of the tuition class the next day, I hid the cup in my pocket. After coming out of the building, we threw it on the cemented floor and a loud echo as if a bomb has exploded trembled the whole building, almost. Aunty was already standing in the balcony and saw how her cup was used to vaccinate our ego. 

           From next day, we stopped going to tuition saying our parents that syllabus is over in a shame that how will we face her. Her phone went to our parents one day, finally and we were specially called at her place. This time we weren't humiliated like the last time but we were said,"Ye mera aakhri batch hai. Ab agle saal se main tuition nahi lungi. Tum logon ne mujhe bata diya k ek teacher hona kitna mushkil kaam hai". And yes, her tuition was the most famous from last 7 years and after that, she literally stopped taking tuition. And this is the story when I was in 9th std. :-) Now, when I send her friend request on Facebook, she keeps ignoring it and I keep re-sending it. I think the hurt ego is still pinching my naughtiness. :-) The whole life is changed but still I want to make her know that I still exist on this planet. Haha! This is one of the 114786 incidents of my childhood. And this is not even the best. But just because I recalled this today thought of sharing it with all of you. This is what nostalgia of visiting the childhood place does. :-) Wait, I have a work. I need to send her Facebook friend request once again. Bye Bye!!!

 Thanks.

 ABHILASH RUHELA - VEERU!!! 

Keep off the grass by Karan Bajaj (Book Review)!!!

868th BLOG POST -->>

       

  I am done reading "Keep off the grass" by Karan Bajaj. I purchased this book when I was very new to this Online sites where we can get books on heavy discounts. Since 3 years, this book has been on my shelf and finally, I picked this 250 pages of a wonderful odyssey and took 2 whole days to complete it. I could have finished this in 3-5 hours straight but the book is so amazing that I preferred taking breaks, digesting the wonderful story and then continuing ahead. And this has really paid off. I will always remember this book somewhere in the background of my mind whenever a dilemma would come in life regarding the selection of my happiness or the race to build lots of money, position in some firm and other materialistic satisfaction. This book is by Harper Collins, the publisher whom I think I have never tried before. I think I should give them more chance because only then I will get to read more wonderful stories like this one. :-)

           Born in 1979, Karan Bajaj is an Indian American author whose debut novel Keep Off The Grass (2008) became a bestseller. His travel adventures have greatly motivated him to write. Following the success of his debut novel, his second novel titled Johnny Gone Down came out in the year 2010. Both his books have together sold over two lakh copies in India itself. After completing his engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi, in 2000, Bajaj went on to graduate from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore in 2002. He has worked as a Brand Manager for Procter & Gamble, and as a Management Consultant for Boston Consulting Group. He is presently a Brand Manager with Kraft Foods, New York and continues to write as well. He has been given awards for his professional endeavours too.

Summary Of The Book

Keep Off The Grass is about a brilliant 25 year old Non Resident Indian (NRI), who is stuck with an identity crisis. A Yale graduate who makes half a million every year as an investment banker at Wall Street, Samrat Ratan chooses to return to India to discover his roots,happiness, and everything else that seems elusive.

His quest in his homeland starts with one of the most popular business schools in India, the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) at Bangalore. Contrary to the person he was before he enrolled himself into IIM-Bangalore, his grades and self-esteem fall as he gets high on marijuana frequently. His life becomes nothing less than a roller-coaster ride thereon.

Samrat remains perpetually stoned and experiences bizarre adventures, including sharing a smoke with and being almost consumed by flesh-eating Aghori saints on the banks of the river Ganges in Benares, meditating on the foothills of the mighty Himalayas, and indulging in a one-night stand with a Danish hippie in Dharamshala.

This hilarious and introspective debut novel by Karan Bajaj traces Samrat’s journey and keeps the readers intrigued till the very end.

Keep Off The Grass was a semi-finalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award and was also nominated for the Indiaplaza Golden Quill Award.The film rights of the book have been sold to Mosaic Media Group, and Ben Rekhi has been signed up as the director for it.

       

   Coming to the author, the above paragraph itself tells how class a story-teller he is. Recently, I saw his pictures on Internet where he captioned how he went to travel to Himalayas with his foreigner girlfriend and got married there. He, his girlfriend were the only two people present in this certain-kms-above-sea-level marriage. :-) After seeing this, I got excited to read this book as soon as possible which got released in 2008. In the initial paragraphs itself, you get an idea that you are going to read something that shall remain with you for a long time in life. I was definite, then itself, that this book is going to give a peaceful and meaningful climax and yes, that's what I got in the end. 

           Author has not over-done anything. He has kept all the incidents short and up-to-the-mark. He has made it sure that every time a page is turned, a reader does not continue with the same thing that was going on the previous page and he gets something new to read. Story is itself quite unique, that you would have read above in the summary of the book that's being taken from Flipkart. The confusion and decision initially to leave for India from Manhattan gives a fast paced start to the book. Once, he comes to India, people's question to him regarding how can he leave his job from Manhattan and come to do MBA in India makes us laugh every time imagining him giving a confused explanation. 

          His initial friendship with 2 boys isn't the same typical friendship shown in every another book in India. In his story, the chase towards excellence can be easily seen in the IIM environment which pressurizes a youngster too much. The trip to Himalaya is short but its the turning point in the book. The internship in Benaras and his learning there, is also written awesomely. In the end, the way protagonist takes his final decision throws many said/unsaid messages on reader. :-) Every chapter's title is the same as the last sentence of the previous chapter. An amazing style, Karan Bajaj. :-) In all, I would give the book 4/5. Definitely, try this one. 

 Thanks.

 ABHILASH RUHELA - VEERU!!!