experiences – Page 16 – Abhinav Bhatt

Today was the day I should write about in a blogpost

What a day!

Sine wave, would be apt to describe the day I had today. With only 1 cycle though. It was a day one should be blogging about because if we are looking for a reason to blog in this attention span absent world, this must be one of the reasons.

It started off badly with huge traffic on the way to office which could make anyone’s mood downbeat and morale absent. I somehow reached office in 1.5 hours battling a gruelling volume of cars, bikes, buses and truck on the road which usually takes me 25–30 minutes.

Anyways, today was a big day for me, as I had to give my Speech 3 of the Competent Communication manual of the Toastmasters Club. Since I joined the Toastmasters Club, I felt like I had found my calling. I am a terrible public speaker and speaker in general (as on the date of the writing of this blog). I want to and I HAVE TO get better at it. There have been so many things in the past which I gave up. This one I don’t want to give up on. I don’t fear the stage. I just mess up on it. Just that when I reach the stage and come down from it, I always end up feeling that I should have done this and I should have done that. And I could have been far far better than what I eventually ended up with. To top that, I speak very fast naturally. And this in turn makes other feel that I am nervous (which I do get but who doesn’t) and that I am skipping words. Which is mostly true. So the feedback I have received till now in my previous speeches is to slow down.

So in order to get inspired and learn the tips and tricks of the game, I started watching YouTube videos of other clubs. And I have visited a community club nearby to see how they do that. And believe me, I have been ODing over YouTube lately. One speaker I would like to mention is Dr. Rajdeep Manwani. I watched couple of his videos and was amazed to see the brilliance and on the feet thinking of his while delivering any speech, even if it was impromptu. And the sense of humor was spellbinding for me. No wonder, he won so many awards in the District Championships. So in last few days, I ended up binging his youtube videos (mostly from Bangalore Toastmasters Club weekly meetings). I watched all his videos and rewatched them as they were not only entertaining, but highly inspiring. I wished if I could meet him someday, I would go gaga over him.

So in today’s speech, I bombed. I spoke so fast, that I forgot many things from my speech. I had to use 3 slides of MS PowerPoint and mid-way during the speech, the projector wire got disconnected which made me forget even more. This speech I had practiced at least 15–20 times. It had become etched on my memory but due to the nervousness and fast delivery, I screwed. This made me touch the trough of the sine wave of the day. I felt really bad, with myself. But, since I have decided not to give up, I am going to attempt the same speech again next week. But still I kept feeling bad till the time I reached home.

I reached home by 5 PM. And I had 2 chocolates, to celebrate my messed up day, as goes the tradition. I was checking Facebook and saw that today Bangalore Toastmasters Club and Beechi Club had linkers meet. And they had a speaker from Singapore, Hitesh Ramchandani and speeches from Dr. Rajdeep Manwani and their own club members.

Meeting was scheduled from 6.30 PM at Catholic Club, Bangalore which is 8.5 KM from my place. I was low. Normally, thanks to my never say no to procrastination attitude, I would have given it a pass. But, I registered for the event and eventually went to attend the meeting.

There, I had the privilege to hear Dr. Rajdeep Manwani live. And it was his CC10 (Which he was attempting 2nd time, after completing everything Toastmasters could offer). And it was brilliant and overwhelmingly inspiring. I am a person who is the last person to ever listen or read anything remotely inspiring. So when I am saying it was, believe me. To top that, Hitesh Ramchandani (motivational speaker who is suffering from Cerebral Palsy) gave such a superb speech that those who haven’t heard, are probably unlucky. I mean, his and Rajdeep’s speech were like eye openers for everyone who takes life for granted and give up easily. Like me.

Their speeches were so so brilliant, that I kept on grinning and laughing during their speeches and hoping that I won’t cry because that would be very very awkward. I got so much inspired that if you touch me now, I might give sparks and generate electricity. After that, I met Dr. Rajdeep and shook his hands. And that made me really really happy. Some people have no idea, what their actions inspire others to do and bring change in their lives.

I hope, I would make use of the inspiration and give my next speech in a much better way, that everyone would enjoy watching and listening to it. Sigh.

What a day!

First in life : An Eulogy

Just for a minute and a half though, but I had to give an eulogy for a colleague who passed away recently. I know, as we get older, the news of deaths keep on increasing. However, this was a shock as the colleague passed away due to strange case of Dengue which took the life away in mere 48 hours, probably in even lesser time. Dengue in 2016 Bengaluru should sound ridiculous. However, this is the world we live in. What’s going to happen next, nobody can know. To add to the misery, the departed was one of the most jovial natured person I had ever met, at least in office. It’s not that we used to hang out a lot, but when you see a happy face, in a sea of mostly dull faces, almost daily once, and then you get to know that now you won’t see that face ever, is a very weirdly awful feeling.

I just wish that the parents of the deceased come to terms with the reality and time heals this immeasurable loss.

Life is fragile. Nobody usually imagines the scenario when you won’t be there and there would be people left behind you. Who loved you and depended on you. Even if you lived away from them but at least they knew that you existed. If one spends time in thinking about that scenario, probably, that would give you an opportunity to consider the things which one is not doing right. And what could be done better. Which all relationships should be given more time. Which all activities one must do before the time comes. Because there might or might not be life beyond the death, but we could live a bit more in the present, happily, before getting done and dusted.

Collywobbles

Everyone knows that it takes a lot to raise hand, stand up, walk and get up on the stage to speak on a random topic. I believed that I could do it easily. I thought I had it in me, you know, the potential that is just ripened to be utilized. It is not like that I haven’t had any chance to speak on stage till now. I did do somewhat of it a lot of times, for instance, giving paper presentations during Engineering days, or some session on technical stuff, training some thing here and there. But none of those were actual speeches. They were mostly just words blabbered leveraging themselves upon on pieces of paper or some PowerPoint presentation or my technical memory et al. Having took part in a handful of things like a total of 1 Debate, 1 Elocution, 1 Compering, 2-3 plays and skits, that one filler item when you act out selling something (we sold kidneys), 2 acts resembling legless robot dance on actual stages, I thought I had done enough to deliver impromptu speech for a couple of minutes on any topic. I thought, I can speak, surely not for long enough, or not in a way of impressing others. I could just speak without making any mark as such but still speak enough. And delivery, content and modulation of the speech is mostly out-of-place, out of words and out of breath. But still I thought I was okay.

public-speaking-1313614-1920x1440

To overcome this inhibition, which is weirdly not the actual fear of public speaking (or Glossophobia as such) but just plenty of procrastination and lack of ample opportunities grabbing on my part to impress others, I thought of joining Toastmasters club running in my office. Having been there twice earlier just as an audience, I clearly understood that the members had far better knowledge and techniques of handling the situations at their disposal when it came to speak freely, calmly and with confidence. I could learn a thing or two and improve on my existing hidden and severely underused talent.

There were table topics going around, which means anyone could come up to the stage and speak on a topic club announced only once you reach the stage. Obviously it is easy to know the topic and then decide whether you want to speak or not. I decided to jump in and speak. I could do alright as I pride myself on knowing a lot of things on every topic under the sun. How bad could it be after all. So I raised the hand and was called onto the stage to speak. I thought they would give me some usual topic about which one could think and speak for a couple of minutes without any trouble. Instead of a ‘topic’ topic, I was given a word ‘Collywobbles‘. Since I am not an American DesiBee kid, I never claim myself to be a know it all when it comes to Vocabulary. I didn’t know the meaning, although, now when I think of it, I should have connected the occasion and figure out some meaning with the context. But I couldn’t. I spoke few words about Tongue Twisters and randomly blabbered something about correlating Colly to Bolly and Hollywoods to get small laughter. I thought I could go on for 2 minutes on it, at least. As it turns out, obviously, I could speak only for 15-20 seconds before I just stopped. Nil. Silence and nothing in mind. Blank. And believe me, when you aren’t prepared, each second there on the stage lasts for eternity when everyone sitting in front looking at your face eagerly. So admittedly, I am still raw to this feat of going on stage and speaking like the pros and like Jon Snow, I know nothing about public speaking. No qualms in saying that. However, one experienced person in the audience asked me to forget the word and just speak about the most memorable thing in my life. Again I was about to go blank but then I thought I could just retell the story of phone calls from Anurag Kashyap and Irrfan Khan. Since I knew about this, I could speak freely and told the audience about my extra curricular activities without much trouble. Although, if someone would be evaluating me on the delivery and body language, I would have got negative marks.But then it is a start, isn’t it. Now when I have joined it, let’s see where it takes me and how much can I do with it. It would be a coaching/session/training I would take part in after a very long time. Hoping for the best.

Ah, one more thing. I didn’t feel any collywobbles in my stomach though, the word meaning uneasiness in stomach which we usually experience when we are about to take on a territory which is new to us. Probably the butterflies in the stomach had escaped out of the ‘letter box’ which I had forgotten to close after relieving myself and getting ready for the session [Straight face smiley]. I hope nobody noticed and even if they did, I did leave an impression. Right? *wink*

Dumbing my smartphone

I am fed up of this thing called Smart Phone. It acts smart but it makes you dumb. I am done with it. I am done with checking newsfeed and timeline again and again without it giving anything worth back. I am done with answering innumerable notifications of several unwanted apps. I am part of 25-30 WhatsApp groups (because people love me?) some of which have same people but different names. Or there are subsets of many supersets of groups. I think my fingers are not at all compatible with keyboard of the phone so I find it highly inconvenient to keep typing there without any logic or purpose. I am fed up of notifications. I HATE NOTIFICATIONS. I like Pull notifications. These Push notifications have made my life sad. Bloody!

: Anger is coming; My emotions are summed up by this illustration by Polish illustrator Morski.

So, I decided to dumb down my Smartphone. In order to do that, I read many articles in which people told how they bought Basic Phone Phones without any features except Calling and how did that improve their lives. From Punkt to good old Nokia, there are multiple handsets which still concentrate on calling and only that. I researched a lot and then came up with buying Samsung Guru 1200. It is Rs. 1200/- and doesn’t have any feature except facility to call and a torch light. No FM, no Camera, No MP3. It is the best thing you want to carry in your pocket. I thought life will be all peaceful and calm with this phone. No distractions. No apps. Chillax life. And the joy of pressing actual buttons instead of fake buttons of a touch screen. Bliss.

BUT, if you live in a society, you are bound to be answerable to many people. You may act as if you don’t care at all but you have to care. People term you antisocial and stop taking you seriously if you seriously cut off from all ways of communication online. You simply can’t disappear just like that once you have spent enough time online because you are expected to be there. You can’t just run away. You are now fully dependent on Internet. You need to check office emails, not regularly but sometimes for sure. You have to see Google Maps, because real men don’t ask for directions. You may check them on laptop and remember but frankly remembering is a passe when you can note down stuff on Evernote or Google Keep. You need to remember people’s birthdays, if you want them to remember yours. And when you don’t have a smartphone and you go out with friends who have smartphones, whom are you going to talk with. As rest all will have their heads dug in their screens anyways.

Thus, I came up with a way to Dumb Down Smartphone partially, keeping it slightly smart and dumb only when it comes to social networking. I blocked ALL NOTIFICATIONS from Whatsapp, Twitter, Facebook and have kept just Google Hangouts because nobody uses Hangouts anymore. I am still going to use the apps which increase and help in productivity such as Evernote, Maps, Calendar and Dropbox. This has actually helped. It gives such a relief to the sense when you don’t check your social media stuffs again and again. There are no distracting pop up notifications from people wishing you Good Morning 15 times a day or the same joke being forwarded from 10 different groups. Notifications are evil if you ask me. The only notification one must answer is the actual phone call. Nobody should be pinging you and say that it is urgent. Call when it is urgent. You can always go to the social networking app when you are totally free and can answer to their texts. People expect a reply, that is all. It is okay to delay a reply and better than ignoring others totally. (This way people think that you are busy so they don’t bother you much as well).

And, I keep my 1200 at home and as a spare phone in case Battery of the smart phone dies on me. The battery of 1200 lasts for a week guys.

Living and Walking Alone

I am somewhat on the introvert side on the line of Social Behavior ranging from Antisocial and then introvert and then reasonably-less-speaking-person on the left side, and then a normal person, extrovert, blah-blah person, and then Antisocial on far right. I do talk a lot given the opportunity, timing, and context but I am not much a fan of Small Talk. So if I don’t have anyone around me for a prolonged period of time, I can do quite alright. In other words, I am accustomed to the feeling of what over-enthusiastic (or just extrovert) people say ‘getting bored’. I am not familiar with the feeling of ‘thaasophobia’ which extra-enthusiastic people might have.

So coincidentally by chance of fate and luck, and some heavenly misalignment of planets*, I am living alone for last 3 months. Before that, I lived with 2 roommates for more than 5 years and even before that, I lived with a joint family of 14 people for over two decades. So for others, it might be a normal thing to tread alone but for me, it is certainly a new experience. Not that I haven’t lived alone for a shorter period of time say a week or two when roommates used to visit their homes but this is now the longest I’ve stayed on my own. Living alone is work if you ask me. One has to be responsible for everything and stay alert most of the times. Earlier one had someone to look after smaller things like shutting off the dripping tap or doing kitchen stuff or the most troublesome task of opening the door when someone knocked. One afternoon I dozed off and forgot to shut the main door. Don’t tell anyone as nobody came, not even the cat. I am still learning the nuances of living alone. And till the grace of some govt. bank HR department, I will continue to rule my apartment like cockroaches roam around Bengaluru, that is, like a boss.

Work-wise living alone is one thing and emotionally it is different. It is wonderful in a way because of several reasons as it gives you to sit down and think. This kind of thing is hardly possible when you have several distractions of people or electronics around. I don’t remember sitting down and pondering about the meaning of life in last 5 years. Nope, never. Now when I don’t have a TV nor a roommate, and when I am totally fed up with the Internet, I go out for a stroll/run. (Ok, whom am I kidding, not Running per se but brisk walk.) This happens in the evening and mostly in the night around 930-1130. Earlier when I used to go for a walk, I used to keep my headphones on with loud music so as to not get distracted by the noise of traffic. Not anymore.

After 930 pm, most streets which are not the main roads are generally deserted. People are inside and Dogs are taking their naps before they go berserk after a couple of hours or so. The place where I live has quite a number of small parks around. So when I go alone, without headphones, I get a chance to look around without any purpose to achieve as such. And I generally see this: Some people coming back from their offices tired and hungry. Some food places’ workers returning to their homes joyously giggling and making fun of each other and a LOT of couples. The average number of couples I see in a mere 2.5-3 KM walk is more than 30. Some slightly mature (30ish) walking after their dinner. Some cuddled up in some dingy corner of the park’s wall where light is rarely disturbing. Some guys standing on their bikes talking to their girlfriends outside Ladies PG Hostels (HUGE number of PGs around here). Some elderly couple walking together with them not talking to each other and men generally walking 1 m ahead of their wives, but still strongly together, if you know what I mean. Some sweet talking PDA types young couples who talk as if their vocal chords have been stuffed with marshmallows. Some sitting outside a closed shop talking with shine in their eyes and glee in their voices. Some quarreling because someone missed wishing on birthday. Some celebrating birthday outside the girl’s hostel. In general, I see more unmarried couples than married ones. This makes me feel kind of happy.

I sense the sort of happiness one feels that one feels after watching ‘Before Sunrise’. The craving people have to meet at least once a day and spend some time to talk is just beautiful. For some, just a glimpse from a window is enough, if it gets too late. I might sound weird as I am not some 90-year-old philosopher who has seen things but to me, there is a sense of innocence in these faces who, after spending their whole day in sun (sometimes office AC also feels like sun if you are not happy with the work) and relentlessly head-banging traffic, they still take time out to make extra effort to talk to the people they like. As I said, many people don’t make that extra effort. They just let it be and resort to technology instead of a good old face to face talk.

Nobody knows, how many those couples turn out to be legitimate couples in future. Nevertheless, this time never returns. After marriage happens, family life begins and the job becomes busier, nobody gets the face to face happy quarreling time back.

Now only thing I worry about is not worrying about this

http://www.firstpost.com/india/beware-loneliness-can-lead-to-stroke-2739360.html*

* Joking

Gokarna – Chill like Hippies

Gokarna is a small coastal temple town in South of India. Just couple of Hundred Kilometers South of Goa, the usual Beach place in India it was earlier known mostly for a Shiva Temple (Mahabaleshwar) and a mention in the Hindu Epic, Gokarna (or Gokarn which means Cow’s Ear), it was a town which was a pilgrimage for Hindus centuries ago. It wasn’t a very popular beach destination till the start of the year 2000 and so on. And it still isn’t. Locals didn’t use the beach much except for fishing but couple of decades ago, tourists mainly from Russia and Europe started coming to this place in order to find less crowded beaches and for a calmer introduction to Indian practises of Yoga and Meditation. Later, it gained popularity and small hotels and resorts started coming up. Indian domestic tourists also started showing up eventually.

Facing Arabian sea, it has few untamed beaches where even the road access is limited. One has to hike across a small hill to get across to other beaches. Although you may hire a boat for the same if you don’t feel like treading along hills which have superb views of the sea from top.

500px Photo ID: 149410549 - Kudle Beach Gokarna

500px Photo ID: 149411209 - Weird rock island near Kudle Beach Gokarna

Since the beaches are mostly secluded and we went in a non-touristy-season, we got chances to view some delightful sunsets. We stayed at Kudle Beach Resort which had a vast expanse of open beach with hills on 3 sides. To reach the hotel itself, we had to park our car on top of the hill and then come down via a very small trek. To reach Om Beach, there was a good road available and from there on, the only way to reach other beaches, we had to walk.

500px Photo ID: 149411019 - Yet another sunset, at Kudle Beach, Gokarna

500px Photo ID: 149410557 - Evening at Om Beach Gokarna

500px Photo ID: 149410565 - Namaste Cafe at Om Beach Gokarna

500px Photo ID: 149411005 - Lovely Om Shaped Beach in Gokarna

500px Photo ID: 149410559 - Pretty good and thoroughly relaxing beach in Gokarna, North Karnataka Beach-Temple-town.

500px Photo ID: 149410555 - Trail on the way from Om Beach to Half Moon Beach (kind of secluded) at Gokarna, Karnataka

There are 4-5 good beaches where one can relax and also enjoy some watersports.

500px Photo ID: 149410563 - Water Scooter at Om Beach Gokarna

500px Photo ID: 149410561 - Lone House Boat in Arabian Sea, Gokarna.

MURUDESHWAR

70 KM south of Gokarna, there exists Murudeshwar. It is a Shiva Temple on the seashore having one of the tallest Gopuarm (Temple Entrance Tower) and a huge Shiva Statue facing towards the town.

Reading Comics (Again)

I last purchased a comic book just before the Cricket World Cup in 1999. Till that time I had hoarded about 150+ of them and had probably read more than twice or thrice of it by borrowing it from friends and cousins. I was a comics nut to say the least. Even when I hadn’t learn to read, I had mugged up a comic book (probably one of the Pran’s Chacha Chowdhary and Sabu’s adventures) just from the narrations my parents and family did for me multiple times a day. I could recite it word by word then. Later, I started buying them. While other kids use to borrow or issue them for a day or two from those Stationary Shops (which acted as Libraries for comic books), I chose to buy as sense of ownership lured me more than just the joy reading. Surely, it was sort of a bragging right in those days. I used to eagerly wait for the next set (issues) of Nagraj, Super Commando Dhruv, Bhokaal, Doga, Bhediya and Parmanu which came out every week. I occasionally bought ever so funny Bankelal and for light fun, comics of Raman, Billu and Pinky. Even the genre of Thrill-Horror-Suspense was one of the things to cherish for. And then there were collectibles with Special Digests and Multi-Starrer to die for. Surely, I made life of my family troublesome by demanding 15 odd Rupees every week for a 32 page comic and sometimes 35 or something for the special one of 64 pages. Kindly note that I used to read only Hindi comics and had very rarely read those Archies or DC and Marvel ones.

Cover of Super Commando Dhruv’s 1st Issue and Origin Story: Pratishodh ki Jwala (The Lion subtly chewing away Jubisko’s hand)

So after purchasing last comic book in 1999, I suddenly stopped. May be because of ‘Board exams’ lurking ahead in a couple of years or may be I had lost interest. Also, other kids had moved on to Computers and objects of bragging rights meant something else. And then on one seriously regrettable unfortunate sad stupid nonsense day, we sold those comics to some junkyard dealer. [pause for sobbing for 5 minutes] Sigh. Not sure what was I thinking back then. I still regret that decision.

Anyways, keeping nostalgia aside, last week I watched ‘Batman v Superman | Dawn of Justice’ which led me to go back and forth on its reviews and links to the source materials, it took inspirations from. That led me to Alan Moore and Frank Miller, whose names I had heard several times but had never paid more attention to them. But then many reviews about Superhero movies kept mentioning their names and also the movie ‘Watchmen’ as it was directed by Zach Snyder and it was based on Frank Miller’s Comic Book (or what they strictly call with caution: Graphic Novel). I watched ‘Watchmen’ (Who watches the Watchmen? People who read comics) later the same week and was no doubt thrilled and excited. Therefore, I reached the obvious conclusion that the sophistication of comic book writing/illustrations these guys had was amazing to the power of amazing. I wouldn’t waste time on praising or writing lengths about them because they are just brilliant.

This week from BvS to Watchmen finally led me to stop everything else and resume reading Comics again in 2016. (Strangely Marvel Movies all these years didn’t make me do so, though I haven’t watched them all as well. Deadpool did a bit recently because I want to see how was his crazy antics treated in the writing but even then I didn’t go ahead and read much). So, I thought I should read comics again and recently I read Batman Year One, The Killing Joke and currently on The Dark Knight Returns.

Screenshot from DC Comics’ ‘The Killing Joke’ by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland

These are some really interesting and must read books for any comics lover. Not only were they path breaking in themselves, they set up the movies we see today, they also were inspirational to the comics scene in India as well. My favorite characters being Dhruv and Batman share a lot of things. Dhruv is essentially inspired by Batman, having lost parents at an early age and then getting support from an honest Police Commissioner (Rajan Mehta: James Gordon) and both don’t have any powers of their own but worked hard to acquire them and so on. For Raj Comics, Nagraj holds the importance Superman has for DC Comics though Nagraj’s style resemble Spiderman’s powers more with both shooting off Snakes/Web from their wrists.

Of course, DC and Marvel started way back in 1930s and serious Indian comics in late 1980s, there has to be a huge ground to cover for us. But having said that, in terms of brilliant Artwork by Anupam Sinha and such and also the intent of the stories, is genuinely impressive. There are silly moments but seeing the larger picture is satisfactory. They still have to do a lot more and they probably must have done so in last few years when I was abstaining from reading them. Not only did they improve on stories, graphics, they also created some characters which are brilliantly mature. Doga for instance, is seriously dark and grim and demands a movie adaptation urgently. Bhedia sounds a lot like Wolverine but I doubt as it was the inspiration because the origin story is totally different. However, Tiranga is a blatant copy of Captain America. I don’t know if anyone reads Tiranga. Parmanu was way better and I haven’t seen much of him since a long time.

Anyways, I have ‘rekindled’ my penchant for reading Comic Books (and currently reading whatever I am getting my hands on). Reading them on Kindle doesn’t have the same feel and effect but reading nevertheless. Instead of cursing about the state of Comics in today’s times, I will start to read them regularly again myself. I also wish to buy a Collector Edition set of Raj Comics, preferably SCD. And if Raj Comics start making their merchandise seriously, I would have no qualms in buying Tees and Action Figures too.

Nagraj Crime King — Screenshot from Raj Comic’s ‘Nagraj: Crime King’ where Nagraj wants Milk

Now does the below page resembles something from the Dark Knight movie by Christopher Nolan?