Rama Moondra

I have gathered courage for a while to be able to write this series.

I kept getting calls from an unknown reader of Udaipur. Capt. Sandeep Sharma was following me to come and be his guest. “Your all stories so far are going to take a beating after you hear mine.” He said repetitively.

So, one fine day, amidst my busy, hectic routine, I planned the trip. The idea was to have dinner with him and leave late night to be able to catch up with work next day. I was sure not to be alone in City of Lakes so I called up Vikrant and he was at Udaipur before I reached. Friends are the best blessing in one’s life and I am the real blessed one.

The steward led me to dinner table which was pre-booked. Vikrant happily spaced himself on another table ordering himself a big plate of tikka and some beer.

I waited patiently for half hour and then started getting restless. Sandeep’s phone was unanswered.” Someone fooled me.” I sent a text to Vikrant and we kept chatting from tables next to each other.

“Hi Ma’am!” I stood quickly looking up  but went numb and quiet for a while. The stern, strong voice had no resemblance with the person on wheel chair. “Thanks for coming. You know now I could not have.” Sandeep has sad, very sad eyes. Sober, gentle and pain smeared on his face like black ink, Sandeep gave me a feeling of heaviness in my heart. His story actually fails Bollywood tales of horror and grime. I am going to finish it in three posts. You have to be with me, my dear reader…

Sandeep got married to his childhood sweetheart with fanfare and royalty. It could have been happily ever after type but fate had something else in store.

Life took a different turn altogether one night when Sandeep found out his wife’s hobby was keeping pet snakes. Stumbling on a box full of snakes in her cupboard was horrifying. Petrified and angry…he asked her to leave all three captive snakes immediately. The lady shamefacedly agreed . Next day before leaving for work Sandeep asked her plans of leaving those reptiles. She promised a call to Wildlife Association or Zoo and do the needful.

More on this tomorrow. Be with me please.

“The things you learn in maturity aren’t simple things such as acquiring information and skills. You learn not to engage in self-destructive behavior. You learn not to burn up energy in anxiety. You discover how to manage your tensions. You learn that self-pity and resentment are among the most toxic of drugs. You find that the world loves talent but pays off on character. You come to understand that most people are neither for you nor against you, they are thinking about themselves. You learn that no matter how hard you try to please, some people in this world are not going to love you – a lesson that is at first troubling and then really relaxing.”

Long ago, it was sent to me by Chief, one of the finest enriching relations almighty has blessed me with. Yesterday when Jatin sent me this entire article, I was delighted to read it in totality. Jatin has always been one of the most knowledge sharing person I have met and thankfully preserve too.

The ways you can tackle a midterm crisis are listed here…try them and trust me…It works. I am around for any help.  Write me on www.facebook.com/ramamoondra.

Pause statue.

It’s a good idea to just stop everything for a while. Take a paper and a pen. Now write all your strengths…no ifs and buts please, ask yourself who you really are. Create a personal development plan on how you would want to leverage your best capabilities. Talk to people you can and find various avenues to change. You or your job may need an overhaul, fresh approach.

Self Awareness

Talk to someone you trust to find out what is it that you really want to be, in your life and in your career.

Re-Learn

Start something new. May be skill building or may be any hobby.Refresh, renew and learn. It has helped me a lot when I learnt to write…it was and still is pure hobby,just that I am able to connect more people with me by the media.

Social Network

Be seen. The new word of mouth is social media. Be on various sites..Connect with old bosses, new friends, lost colleagues, recent recruits..Network is mantra of success.

My apologies for posting it late by a day.

So, moving on from Quarter Life Crisis and hitting midlife and career crisis now. I am back to my writing as I sure know what a midlife crisis looks like.

As one of my precious readers, Aditya V Singh puts it, “Revisiting childhood and adolescence to peel off latent aspirations is desired  while one reaches the midterm of career. Those aspirations need to be pursued passionately one after another for taking life to another orbit. Lot of courage & conviction will help resurrect life or crisis as never before.”

There are a few things in life that one has very little chance of escaping. Heartbreaks back pain, banging a car, losing on the stock market or having a mid- life and career crisis. So how does one know that it is around the corner or you are stuck into one?

What to expect each day at work gets more and more predictable: you know exactly what you will be doing any given minute of your work day. Your challenges, your responses, your options, your actions are all predictable. At the end of the year you can pretty much predict what your boss will say about your performance, you know what your bonus is likely to be and you know what your career rewards will be. The learning has stopped: you haven’t learnt anything new in a while. What you are doing is more or less something that you have been doing all along.

To top it all, you suddenly feel your life is so routine and mundane at all places. You have not made new friends for long & do not have enough time to speak to old ones.

You know the job is not keeping you happy and you do not have enough knowledge of how to find what to do.

Recently someone contacted me for his career charting and growth plan and he listed his strengths (first part of the course) and never called back. I knew what had happened so my text read clearly,” Scared to know yourself?” The response was YES.

You have got into your comfort zone. You know that you are good at what you do but you also know, deep inside, that the next step requires you to learn new skills, to get used to being uncertain, unsure and learn to face fear and failure all over again. And you just can’t seem to be able to muster the energy to do all of this .You wait and expect the organisation to appreciate and leverage what you have already proved yourself in. This does not happen. You feel cheated and angry within yourself.

How and what to do..I will be back day after, not tomorrow. Keep connected.

For the first time a guest writer is on my blog. I am proud and happy to do so since it comes from one of the most important persons of my life. This is from Ashish Golcha.

So here it for you ..first write up on Mid term Career and Life Crisis.Three post series..

It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn’t know and may not like.You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren’t exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don’t recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren’t really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job… and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.

Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn’t. One minute,you are insecure and then the next, secure.

You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay
where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic.You begin to think a companion for life is better than a hundred in the shack and for once you would not mind standing tall for that special someone which otherwise you had never thought of until now.

You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself… and while winning the race would be great, right now you’d just like to be a contender!

We call it the “Quarter-life Crisis”
Contributed by Ashish Golcha. Edited by Me

Measuring personal ability is so easy yet we complicate it so much.We all have a capacity which differs from person to person.  This capacity is called ‘Self Esteem.’ The value tag we put on all ability of ours and to be able to stretch it is so important.

Let me share a personal example. I have been stretching myself in yoga every day. Doing lunges and stretching on knees is harsh and I reeled under severe pain for that. My dance classes did not suffer because of that though. I had to apply painkiller ointment and do warm ups as well but still went to dancing. It pained even further. Anyways, I was up and ready for yoga classes next morning at six a.m.

What happened? I just pushed myself hard to achieve what I wanted to do. It’s just that I do not punish myself for being limp in knees or even a burnt comment from my yoga partner, ” I can do it five sets, you cannot. You have a problematic knee.” Those hard words once pierced through but my self- security is too high to be impacted. I did not even give a damn to his words. I hear a lot on my limping so I am now used to it. If I let it affect me, maybe I will cry every night.

People, who you are nice and kind to, may hurt you . It’s their insecurity. It does not need to deter you. Trust me, the amount of people I have lost in life, I should have a personal cemetery of relationships by now. Some of them are with god, some are destiny’s choice but some just happened to be pure rude and ill-meaning. What do I do about them? Forgave and forgot the third category. I do not look into mirror to see a person who is self pitied and blaming.

So, measure yourself by what do you think of yourself. Not by what others try to de-motivate you from. If someone stops talking to you, looks down on you, demotivated you from achievements, just stop measuring yourself against them. They are confidence-suckers and will leech you only if you allow them to.

Take a paper and write all good things about yourself. It boosts morale. Sure-fire technique.

Listen, I do not mean that you just become overconfident and stop listening to people at all but do not judge only by them. You are a capable person and it’s you whose self awareness matters the most. People will and have always played games against each other and that is life. If you are secure and confident only then people will believe you. It’s like bank account. You cannot take out anything if you have not deposited.

Look yourself into mirror and say, “I am the best.” Trust me; you are if you think you are.

I got many mails asking me to write on human insecurities generated out of family ties. The dictionary definitions may differ as I believe in writing what my perception is.

In my opinion, lot of parents and families play a game on their children especially in their formative years. The game changes shape once the child is adolescent and beyond but it continues, no matter what.

This game is called, “Emotional Blackmail!” wrapped in beautiful gift papers of love laced with high pressure performances and expected to be the best child ever born to mother earth. Most parents want the child to become either what they could not or exact replica.

Sounds harsh? I know. We are so conditioned to see it only as obedience that a truth which may bind, can look like rebellion streak.

.A country like India, which does not have any govt supported network of security, social security is our safety net.

I personally believe family brings in tremendous amount of security system though there is cost attached to everything. There are no free lunches in this world.

As one of my readers Pankaj Bhimani puts it, “security comes from trust and the level of trust we set in the air, more security felt by one. If the person is not opening or what we call person has not “WITHIN” ….It can be found by openness and trust.  I guess “setting up trust level” is one of the efforts to be put in.”

The family bonds can only make you feel secure and vice-versa when trust of every member is high on the relationships. Else it may become a draining impact and can shape an individual coming from deep insecurity and warding off all good relationships as one grows seeing abuses. This person may abuse relationships or may be too scared of good things happening to one. That person has been made believe that he does not deserve it.

Another level of insecurity is personal ability measures. We will talk about it tomorrow.

Be with me. As always..

“Where is the blog?” Parth is one of my favorite readers so his complaint cannot be ignored. After all, he has been calling me, “meri maa” ever since I remember talking to him.

I am starting a new series on feeling of security. Why and how our insecurities crop up and where is the genesis of insecurities?  How to minimize them? A three post series begins with this write up. According to Parth himself ,     “Security may lead to the lack of adventure or say lack of entrepreneurial spirit. But yes it may be noted that social or family security may lead to the better fearless performance as the person does have backups. The better the person equipped with educational, financial support he/she may take bold steps which may lead to the unconventional thinking.”

I agree on this point of having good family security. To be able to fall back upon a family who will understand you and hold you tight when times are bad, is a sheer bliss. I have been blessed by a family matching the specifications though I may not go and cry every time, the very feeling that I can, itself has been great support.

From womb to tomb, the family ties us. Sometimes that becomes a limiting factor and also the genesis of insecurities as well. We will talk about it in next post though.

A good childhood spent in secure environment helps a person develop value system and grow as well. I have seen my friends abroad lacking it and drifting away in various bad practices.

A secure child does become a family oriented person though not necessarily secure independent person.

How and Why? We talk about it tomorrow.

There’s only one life: I loved the latest flick, “ Zindagi Milegi Na dobara.” Well, my love for Hrithik and soft corner for Farhaan did rule as always but my take on this movie is threefold.

The first is how much are we living for ourselves. How many cordons are blocking us just because it’s related to what society or people may think? The life we live is actually our own life and others are part of it. Most of us are coffined already in a box. I loved the dialogue, “ Insaan ko dabbe me tabhi hona chahiye jab wo mar chukka ho.”

The second is my favorite topic and tagline, “You live only once. There is only one life.” I think a lot of friends across globe are in my life because they believe in the same philosophy. Cheryl, that includes our fights and make ups as we both are of same clan. So even I have jumped off a plane, danced on 14000 ft height snowed mountain peak, dived with sharks (may sound crazy..Gold Coast Australia has amazing diving tank of sharks), loved and let go, hurt and heal and learned this hard way that you live only once. There is no tomorrow. I fondly remember a lost soul right now who I said before boarding a turbulent flight, “If it does not land, If I die today, I want you to know, “tum mujhe bahut ache lagte ho.” I am happy that I said that it to him then as life never gave me second chance to live it as well.

The third  is again a personal favorite and I have done entire series on my blog for that. Facing fears. It’s amazing act of all three characters facing their fears and experiencing freedom. I have faced living alone in strange cities, travelling alone in different surroundings, fighting injustice in every form,bleeding and howling in hospital for terrible injuries, my claustrophobia in diving!  Even a day to day swimming puts me back to lack of breathing, for me it’s a small victory every day.

I have learned to do all three things as much as I could and learning it every day still so I can see a happy face of the person who matters most to me, the person I see in mirror.

So, My favorite piece from movie, “Dilon mein tum apni betaabiyan leke chal rahe ho, toh zinda ho tum.Nazar mein khwaabon ki bijliyan leke chal rahe ho, toh zinda ho tum.Hawa ke jhokon ke jaise aazad rehna seekho.

Tum ek dariya ke jaise lehron mein behna seekho.Har ek lamhe se tum milo khole apni baahein.Har ek pal ek naya samaa dekhiye.

Jo apni aankhon mein hayraniyan leke chal rahe ho, toh zinda ho tum
Dilon mein tum apni betaabiyan leke chal rahe ho, toh zinda ho tum”

I have been hurt since last few months. Well, Steve and aftermath of Udaipur has been written though I am still trying to write it off. So, my hurt still stems from there and has not died down yet.

I have been getting a call from a person from Udaipur. (Yeah…Once again…the city of wet lakes with people of dried hearts.)

Captain Sandeep Sharma is very eager to meet me but do not want to travel to Ahmedabad. Rather he says, he cannot. He is ready to pick up all expenses but he wants me to travel.

He comes across as a decent person to talk to. The reason he wants me to come over to share his story of life and he says that my blog stories so far will fail once I have heard him. “I am living with this intense pain everyday and die too. Please! You are not supposed to hate a city just because of one person.” He said. Vikrant offered me to drive down and he thinks that it may turn out as pleasant as ever. “Give a second chance yaar.I can make the city look the same for you. Say yes once.” He insisted only to hear my stern refusal.

I have never been so allergic to any city. Somehow the city of lakes now has three bad memories to associate with and I just am not enough motivated to go. At the same time, my heart is forcing me to listen to a person who needs to talk and also it somewhere might free me from intense dislike I have developed.

It’s a struggle I am going through and really thinking what to do. Need your suggestions. Will the trip liberate me from intense painful memory or will it strengthen and bring back the fateful night I am trying hard to forget. Am I doing injustice to an unheard counsel just because I have not yet healed? Do I have the right to do so as a counselor? Is not that my feelings are important to me as well?

Dear Vikrant,

This time I am replying publicly as desired by you. I agree that you promised me to get that auto driver as well as a  base ball bat and hit him black and blue. I agree that you said, “Care a damn about police…Yeh Udaipur hai Madam, we know our job.”

I did refuse the offer not because I was afraid of beating someone unconscious, not because of police action etc, not because I do not want to come to Udaipur anymore (Hope fully this feeling will fade away too).

I refused because it’s not me to take revenge. Vipaasana has taught me only to forgive and let go, no matter what the other person has done. May sound saintly but in retrospect, it has made me a very calm and composed person within and has won me friends across globe since I take them just the way they are. I have come across detached at times to some people,even to you Vikrant but a closer look and you will realize that I do not move out on any one. The biggest solace my relationships have that I am unshakable  rock  of Gibraltar. Come what may, once there is always there. So, it has nothing to do with fear as in fear defined here.

Fear has one more attribute  and I am quoting it as it is, the way my dear friend and a voracious reader Jatin Gajjar narrated.

“There is a second dimension to Fear also. For example, when you lean over a ledge, fear is a mechanism to warn you…… [You then have to respond to the fear by pulling back or make an estimate that it is still safe]. You need to rationally deal with you fear. [I would not advise to ignore it!]
One of my mentors taught me a very good thing. Whenever your subconscious sends you a signal (fear), try to evaluate why? I have often found that when we ignore these signals as passing thought or fear, we end up in a situation which we did not want. So it is important to listen to your fears and understand why the subconscious wisdom gave this warning! This generally will help to make minor corrections in the plan and there would be a higher probability of ending up the way we planned.”

Just to add on, do not use this system as an excuse for everything. Do not read signals when they do not exist. Subconscious warning  comes only when you take action, not before that.

I strongly believe that absence of fear is not courage essentially. Absence of fear lets us breathe better, allow freedom of expression and saves us from victimization of situations. My courage has never taught me scuba dive without checking my air tank or opening door to a stranger’s painful cries in Atlanta. (That’s the way house break in happens there.)

The wisdom is to understand the difference between fear binding us blinded despite we want to do that action so much and jumping on a rope without checking the fall back support system.

Have a fearless, wise decision making system and the world is yours to conquer.