Farther but father

The more farther we go away from home, the more it pulls us towards it. We want to get home and we are so sick and tired of being a new place that we are suffering with grave home-sickness syndrome. Today is my last day here in Israel, tomorrow I will fly back to India. Even the thought of flying back gives me great joy and excitement.

I really missed home, for a change. I missed my dad more than anyone in the world. I just felt as if something was incomplete. My day was not getting complete without looking at him. I did call him, not once but many a time. But nothing like seeing him in person. The attributes that I have learned from him and also inherited can never be replaced for anything else in the whole world.

My dad is very simple. He works for a bank and comes from a very humble middle-class background. He does the same work day in and day out. Today where I stand is all because of him. The determination and the amount of hard work I put in all things, is all because of his upbringing. Lot of difficult times comes to everyone in life. I have learnt to fight things like him. He always says, "The more difficulties and problems you face in life, the more harder you should hold to gods feet". I would know only 10% of the amount of mantras and vedas he knows. Spiritual, simple, humble, determined, well these are just some I can list here.He has never been abroad. Coming from such a background, seeing his son go abroad, I think this itself is an acheivement for him. Coming out from difficult period of life, our education. The tensions of how well we would settle in life, what job we will get?All this keeps any father on his toes. Seeing us grow and do well is a pride for him. It is like a feather on the crown of his upbringing.

First time when I had been to Israel, I was totally overwhelmed and excited that I missed lot of things which I never saw. This time, the excitement was quiet settled down and made me to think and look at things which I had missed the first time around. I was to leave by the night. The tickets and visa came in at the last moment, taking my prepartions for a toss. I came home early from work as I had a flight to catch in the night. Had to report in the airport 4 hours before the scheduled take-off.

As often, my dad and mom dropped me. Last time around, I had gone with some co-workers. This time I was going alone. I was quiet confident of making it without any trouble. Got down out of the car, took a trolley, put my suitcase on it said bye to my parents and left. At the Gate entrance I turned around to say bye again. There was my dad and mom standing in front of the car. I can never forget that look on my dad's face. The content and pride in his eyes, was a site to behold and cherish. I turned around only to have a drop of tears in my eyes. I have done something to make my dad proud. :) :)

Paradigm Shift

After some days of break from my blog, I had one thoughts going around in my mind for quiet a long time now. It has been there all the time, but I just could not map it to words. We keep thinking in one dimension, until something happens and sweeps us off our feet and the whole prospective changes. This something can be something that you did not know, or may be some incidence or may be even a hidden information that comes out.


I had read this story somewhere. May be in some of the forward mails. I think you must have heard about it too. There is a guy who travels on a train with his two children. As soon as he hops into the train from the station, the silence of train compartment breaks into a chirpy noise and shouts. The children were making so much noise and fighting that it woke sleeping people in the compartment. Most of them had a frown on their face looking at these kids run mayhem.

The guy with the two children was quiet. He sat and said nothing to his son and daughter creating clutter and argument. The lady who sat next to the guy asked him, if he can do something about his children. The guy replied saying, these kids just lost their mom in the hospital. The scene of frown and grin turns to sympathy. Death can create such a spell on anyone. The lady here had something called paradigm shift in her towards the whole situation. It is just the way you look at it.

Changing view, looking from a different angle, does change the complete comprehension of the situation. Death is something that has the tendency to do such a thing. One of my colleagues was very tensed and nervous in doing his work. He must have made some silly mistakes that day. With his experience around 10-15 years in the same field. Day in and day out, he must have learnt everything, but still he made some mistakes. Some may have thought he is not efficient. Or may be he is having a bad day. One of my friends asked him, why he was so nervous. He replied, I have some personal problem, which is very difficult to solve. This again changes the point of view. Now we do not feel that he is inefficient, but we feel sympathy for him!!

People change, things change, but the way we think remains constant. It is only after we have full knowledge of the situation that we realize our mistake in one way of thinking. Half information is dangerous, full info does explain us the situation completely. Understanding the whole situation needs patience and lot of it. We are in a fast world of fast misconceptions, which leads to lot of unwanted issues. Remembering to understand the whole situation will give us more enlightenment in life. More or less we can become more wiser.

Here is a video of Steve Jobs the CEO of Apple at Standford University (very old). Check out at many occasion in the video, how the crowd laughs at his first line and becomes ever more silent when his explanation follows. Every good speech I should say!!