My recent reading of various books to understand life beyond our rut has put me in a dilema. The Secret by Rhonde says we can control our lives by positively wishing the best things to happen. All of Hindu scripts including The Ramayana and Srimad Bhagvad Gita as well as The Mahabharat talk about doing the good deeds and following dharma, not seeking material pleasures or gains. Gains or losses, happiness or sadness have no meaning; detachment is the zeal of life. Dr Brian Weiss, author of Many Lives, Many Masters and the 4 other books ahead, has received messages that we come into our physical form to pay debts and learn to progress to higher planes. Hinduism and Dr Weiss both talk about how we have no control over our destiny, yet we must learn to improve. Somewhere, all three put together doesn’t feel whole and meaningful. Yet, the three sources seem to be going hand in hand and somewhere I seem to be losing track of.

For instance, how will my soul learn from my previous lifetimes if I have no conscious memories in current life? Does this mean I will be bound in a cycle of repetitive rebirths? Or why does terrorism and mass killing of humans happening? How does the soul learn from such deeds except from the fact that after death, the soul has many lessons to learn? Why will a soul come to physical form to perform atrocities? How do we in our conscious life, know the purpose and lesson to be learnt? I’ve pondered over this for ages now, with no answer

In Hinduism, acts of atrocities are attributable to the era of Kaliyug; which started at the end of the great was of Mahabharat. But the four eras have been made by God, so there must be a larger purpose behind this? There are so many questions and somehow, answer to one leads to ten more questions!

When will we beings learn and how? At the start of the Kritayug?

Wow! really, is this now that PC realised in everyday life we need to bribe somebody to get work done!! Was he counting stars since we got our independence? What has he done besides create breed in more corruption in the system?

Its difficult to comprehend the teachings, even difficult to practically put to use, but like God says, it’s the path to perfection and a slow learning process. At the end, I also believe, the Gita is not for Hindus only, its a beautiful learning to attain the spiritual world, to get rid of this current competitive life, to learn to appreciate the higher meaning of life.

We’re all just in a rat race of this cut throat competitive world. Each of us losing the meaning of true life, of our soul and leaving ourselves with no time for God. We only remember him during time of need and festivals. Such is our rat race routine. The Gita has definitely made me think twice,  look back at my running and never ending list of priorities, and wonder why have we humans gone insane? What are we all trying to seek? As we’re advancing through the years, our lives have only become complicated since we want to enjoy higher standard of living full of complexities and unhappiness! At the end of the day, a small wage earner in my factory seems to be the happiest of the lot. He’s got shelter, sufficient food, a happy family, a job and above all satisfaction of all the little things life holds for him. He’s got God within himself.

Shrimad Bhagvad Gita, God’s own words and principles to a wonderful living! We don’t need self help books, astrologers and work shops, it’s heavenly abode to all!

School days books would include Enid Blyton series and Nancy Drew! I think I’ve read all of them till 1999. In college – that would be merely 2 years,  came Sidney Sheldon, Michael Crichton and Robin Cook. Again read all of them! Would love Crichton’s work on science. Sci fiction was an addiction suddenly. Robin Cook’s Coma and Fever are mind boggling!

After this era, I was stuck with my studies, however was exposed to this brilliant book “Many Masters, Many Lives” by Dr Brian Weiss. So profoundly influenced, I bought the entire series of his work – 5 of them till date I think. I suddenly wanted to read only these themes, but nothing caught my attention. All this was also couple with gender books – like Men / Women ones – very cute and hilarious books. I’m dead sure, my approach towards guys have changed drastically after 3 book doses!

In the meanwhile, I graduated to reading a bit of management style books – it all started with The Goal – whoa- my entire management costing subject seemed to be taking place in a story. Loved it! here began my quest for reading such books – but was too young and unexposed to what good books were there in the stores. I laid my hands on some book at Infosys library – I don’t remember the name but it was of a great guy who worked in either Coke or Pepsi and then was a founder member of Mac. I managed to read the book half way – pretty interesting, but never getting me hooked to it.

Yet, I bought “Six Sigma” by the toyota team I’ve no idea why I got this though. Till date I’ve barely read th first 30 pages. And I got it 4 years back! Amidst this , I borrowed a book on Reiki from my bro-in-law. Read plenty of it, but it didn’t make too much sense eventually. Requires meditation and clear mind – both i’m terrible at!

My next conquest was The Undercover Economist – bought since the last 3 years and finally completed in the last week in 2 days! Brilliant book – Completely Must read! The next was We Are Like That Only (my first indian authored book) – and I was only rolling with laughter reflecting on myself. A cool book on marketing in India. Some books just catch attention by their titles!

And now, I realised I’m bored with the management bla bla bla! Need a change – to refresh the aging mind (lol) So went on a shopping spree and got confused I didn’t know new books, new authors So went back to my age old authors and got Angels and Demons, State of Fear and Seizure. Oh of course, to not let me feel guilty about reading fiction as a business woman, I even got The World is Flat (hoping for some good)! In one week, I’m shoked I made through 3 big books! I got swollen eyes from being so glued to Angels n Demons Nevertheless, it was fun – a great change from my existing choice. Now I ran a search, and discovered 3 more – I plan to get them – hoping they’ll rock too – The Shack, The Medici Dagger and The First Apostle. I pray they’re available in the stores By the way, I just saw online that in mid September Dan Brown is back with Robert Langdon with the release of The Lost Symbol! Really looking forward to it. Imagine it took him 6 years to write a book!!!! Wow… that’s a lot of research

Now here’s another world – a dark shunned world. My friend (an avid football player and fan) was in Bhubaneshwar and as a part of his educational project, visited the slum area of the city. His first reaction was that slum dwellers of Mumbai and Pune are filthy rich and have an amazing standard of living. The dwellers in Bhubaneshwar live in mud huts which get washed off with every rainfall. And Orissa has a great flood record! Besides, he came across an orphanage in the slum wherein he met this girl – no hear the twist to the story – the girl was representing Indian football under 14 girls team! Whoa.. when I heard this, I barely felt I could understand what he was saying. On enquiring, the girl said she has visited a number of countries for playing. She even added further that her family refused to support her cause of her passion to play football. What bad luck – first be a girl, and next football! She was abandoned in an slum orpahange!

Do I need to say more? This is the state of our sports. Is this why we have a sports minister at the Centre? We don’t need one – he anyways hasn’t brought much change. I’ve heard ( don’t know in true facts) that China is training 100o of its people in every sport. And here – we throw our trained people into the drains. Good bye good rubbish! Why is it so difficult to move away from male dominated cricket? It wasn’t even an Indian sport that we’re so hung on it. The Brits came, we resented them, threw them out, but still kept all the things they imposed on us. I’m not against cricket, but why not other sports – each one equally challenging and amazing? Why do we just need to make BCCI more rich and promote our cricketers who are already doing awesome in their own bit? Why IPL (half of India’s GDP can account for IPL if we could keep a track of all the money that flows in it legally / illegaly) and not donation and right channelisation of these resources into other development? I’m sure other sports like tennis has already done,  can do good to our country and people.

Are you hearing Mr Sports Minister? Or are you too busy in counting your money? Even the Brits play more games though they introduced us to cricket!

Point is, how on earth were these ancient civilisations so accurate and could do some many complex astronomical calculations by themselves. Even after the advent of computers and numerous technologies, we have not been as astonishing as our ancient civilisations. Its really worth a read online about both these factors… A different world to look at – something beyond our routine.

So if 2012 is the doomsday or the golden era – lets connect with ourselves – we’ve got too little time Its time for some self realisation and reach a spiritual plane!

Come 21st century and snarling traffic! Infact, it wasn’t so bad till 2 years back. The entire area is extremely well developed with departmental stores, big brands retail outlets, eating joints, IT, gyms, banks, etc. Yet the roads quality and quantity remain the same as 20 years back, much to our dismissal

Its become impossible to walk either on the streets in the evening owing to the heavy traffic. The cars, bikes and buses are all snarling at you. I decided to walk till Anand Park cos I didn’t really want to get stressed in the traffic – god save us! There was absolutely no place to walk. There are no footpath either – and where there is one, huge ancient trees block the path. I was literally walking with the bikes on the road. Anyways, I was faster on footh that the cyclists too!

Worst still, people don’t care – they won’t obey any kind of traffic rules. I wonder why we have any traffic rule in the first place. Save some soul’s energy! Everyone is in a hurry – as if their lives would end if they waited for 5 minutes more. They make situation worse by going on the wrong side of the road and then expecting to reach their destination even faster. Sometimes I wish I had a stone gun fixed to my car – whoever does something stupid, should be shot with one stone Serves them right!

When would the PMC wake up? Or better still, they should scrap all kinds of octroi and RTO taxes for providing so much inconvenience to citizens.

Anyways, I ran a general search online (I’m a Google addict) and my friends call me an internet freak to find anything and everything online! I really didn’t find anything online though My cousin had showed to Dr Sangeeta Wagh a few months earlier and I decided to call and ask if she does Lasik ( I was pretty sure I wouldn’t do PRK even if god forced me to) Got an appointment a week later, only adding to my restlessness. So on the fruitful day of appointment, she took all my measurements, cornea thickness, etc and is the sweetest doctor I’ve come across (considering the chain of diseases I’ve gone through) And my father was also convinced with her. She asked me to do Topography test back at Zy Vision. The test lasted for 5 mins … .and I prepared for it as though it’s gonna take me 2 hours! The topography like dr explained gives them a view of the backside of the cornea ( i think so) All I could make out was green, blue and yellow colour look of both my eyes

The day of the surgery was the funniest! I went in the morning to give my topography test report and had planned to go to the office. There was however no one in the clinic to even show the report to. We waited for and hour and half and then the assisstant doctor came. She took my readings and asked me to come after a few days with a prior appt. Just then, doctor came and said I can do the surgery. There was a lot of thinking as to when to do it because she does it only on a saturday with prior appt (we were there on saturday) and the next 2 weeks she was busy. I was so dismayed And then suddenly she asked if I would like to do it today in some time itself! I was more than happy! Never been so courageous though. Dad wasn’t at all liking the fact of doing a surgery within 30 mins and I was so motivated that doctor agreed to do it finally!

The surgery was at Zy Vision and hell, it took my 30 mins to get parking and almost near FC main gate! There were 4 patients ahead of me, and each of them took like 5 – 10  mins. Even a hair cut would take longer! And then my turn – was pretty nervous and anxious. And my doctor came so free and smiling and asking me to relax. She clipped open one eye, poured some liquid in the eye. It felt strange that I couldn’t blink my eye – in routine I rarely blink till my eyes turn dry but here I just wanted to shut my eyes close. The operation lights were glaring – that was irritating too! Next she cleaned the eye, and started moving an object on the cornea. That object was meant to keep the eye stable so it doesn’t move. I knew there would be sudden blindness – and yeah, that’s what happened! Then I could feel a knife cutting my cornea – whoa – I was well prepared cos I read up a lot online about each and every second that one goes through during the surgery. Again, I could see those deadly glaring lights helplessly! She asked me to concentrate on some green light up. Suddenly, it smelt like hair burning. Of course I couldn’t see the laser beam, but I could see everything clearly there itself! The cornea was flipped back and the ugly annoying object removed and presto! I could see! She then helped the cornea stick back nicely. The whole procedure repeated for the 2nd eye. And for some reason, I found it pretty painful – enough to bear it though!

Once done, she asked me to open my eyes – those lights were still on, just not helping me I asked her to either make them dim or switch them off! And the world felt awesome!! With just 6-7 mins of suregery, I could see everything now without spectacles! I was simply extremely excited about the whole thing – like a magic!

I was kept in the recovery room for a few moments – put a million other eye drops! And it did pinch a little – my nose was simply flowing like a river!  Came home, had lunch and took the sleeping pill which she prescribed. Slept like a log for 4 hours and everything was smoooth. No pain, no irritation, nothing. Just an amazing world to see!

I started writing this blog on March 26th, and completing it today. A complete hassle free day – no lenses, no dust botheration, no more tired eyes! Infact it took ages to realise that I can see the watch as soon as I get up

Love my natural vision and ofcourse my doctor too!

As a common man, I couldn’t reach out to those who were attacked, I couldn’t help those who were killed brutally by the terrorists, but I am happy I could be a part of the peace march in honour of all those who laid their lives for India. I am satisfied that as an Indian, I could be a part of a rally for a good cause, a rally that promotes peace.

With thousands of Puneites participating in the march, we could feel the Indians in us, we could feel how everyone was deeply moved and terrorised by the brutal attacks. All our aim was one – we Indians, we salute our brave leaders, we Indians grieve over those killed, we Indians vow to fight back terrorism. The anger, anguish and patriotism could be well observed from young primary school children to the elderly couples.  It The terror attacks have only served the purpose of uniting us, served to fail the politicians and terrorists attempt to divide us Indians, and has made us much stronger. We will fight back, we will not be quite. During the march, it felt like pre independence era – may bee even those days they would march down singing praises of India. I really felt we were in the  1940′s… just that we need a true leader for our country.

I was there – 5th December – the peace march in Pune – because I’m a proud Indian.

Bharat Maata ki Jai! Vande Mataram!

Hum sab ek hai!