The "24" gospels ..

As I stand just 15 days away from the 24^th milepost of this rather adventurous expedition, I feel a pressing desire to manipulate the clock, scoot towards the gradually widening image of this important milestone on my road and triumphantly shriek that I’ve found the twenty-fifth clue in this lovely game of treasure hunt!!!

I know I’m childishly kindling an uproar on turning 24, but that’s primarily coz this year happened to be extremely glorious yet impactful, a year of worldly experience and squarely, it was a year of extremes - of friendship and hostility, of affection and hatred, of meetings and departures, of cachinnations and bitter cries and of monotony and sharp changes.

I didn’t know I’d unearth a treasure trove of high-spirited buddies, non-stop fun and wild laughter on Level 7 of ADP Pvt Ltd when I was joining it. Never did I enjoy so much before, not even in school or college. As time rolled by , my bonds and roots in my team grew stronger than ever before and I felt so safe,secure and settled in the company of afew that I foolishly failed to realize the ‘permanent’ element of‘temporariness’ in almost everything around me.

With time befell change – the slew of events starting from the offer to change my technology to my subsequent exit from my team, the changed circumstances after my shift to the headquarters and a string of other personal experiences this year taught me so much, which I don’t remember has ever happened before. I call them the ’24 gospels’ of my 24^th year:

1) Independence: Being totally dependent on others (financial, emotional or even work-related) would puncture your self-esteem. One would eventually become a to-be-taken-for-granted element whose feelings are played around with as if it were a football. There is no bliss superior to the bliss that grows out of being able to live on your own self.

2) Money: Money comes in and goes out at its own will. You can’t really establish a firm control over its inflow or outflow. The more you try to save, the more you lose.

3)Expectations: Diminished expectations mean diminished proximity. The best way to enjoy life is to invest your love, trust, energies and time in people who meet your expectations. By doing this you’d avoid giving someone the prerogative to hurt you.

4) Love: All its flavors blind you totally– you rarely realize the reality as your mind refuses to be practical. Beware of loving in extremes – firstly it wears you down, and secondly, it doesn’t even melt the heart of the person you love. Holding a person too tight for the fear of losing him/her, would eventually lead to a lot of mess and sometimes even separation.

5) Unrequited Love: We as ‘intellectual’ human beings reject people who genuinely love us and chase people who don’t care to reciprocate to our feelings. It’s up to you as to whom you’d choose between the two.

6) Relations: Some relations have no names. There are constant tiffs and misunderstandings but equally constant patch ups; for no reason, the other person appears as extremely important as other blood relations coz despite frequent quarrels, you love the other person just as you love your own family.

7) Friends: Not every Tom, Dick and Harry whom you just wave a ‘Hi’ to or swap smiles with is a ‘friend’.

‘Friends’ are people who willingly take the pain to walk the extra mile to axe your worries and plant happiness. They are those whom you can phone even in the most absurd hour for help. There is so much of understanding and intimacy- you’d never hurriedly clean up your messy house in order to avoid embarrassment when a ‘friend’ is going to drop in. It is such friends who matter. All the rest are just ‘acquaintances’, not friends.

8) Ego: The monster which can burn a relation into cinders. It’s ok to be egoistic with strangers but not with our own people. Ego should never become more important than a person. If a sorry can help a relationship, why not say it rather than being egoistic?

9) Departures: Every new meet signifies an impending departure. Every new person you meet will wave good bye some day. When you are confident of your relation (whichever it is), departures don’t hurt. But when you feel that a departure might dilute your relationship, then probably the relationship was never as strong as you thought it was.

10) Distance: Distance is like wind to fire – It extinguishes the small and kindles the great. Distance never matters in any relationship provided both the parties are interested in each other.

11) Loneliness: Loneliness, as against the common notion, is caused by a single person and not by many. In fact it happens when this single person, who assumes priority, ceases to communicate. Nobody, not even the whole world, except this person can break this shell of loneliness.

12) Work: A person’s tightest circle of friends happens to lie outside the professional circuit. It’s not that colleagues can’t be friends. It’s just that by the time you are 22-25 your world and comfort zone would already have been chosen and built. People find it difficult to start and maintain new relationships. Even if they start new ones, they are not as strong as the previous ones.

13) Change: The world around me always kept changing, my priorities, my ideas, my choices and sometimes even the proximity in relationships - everything kept changing. As change is inevitable, we might as well embrace it with a smile than resist it with a frown. Time, tide and change wait for none !!!

14) God and prayers: The Almighty I believe in, listens to my simple-worded prayers regardless of the place and time I choose. I need no interpreters or pujaris to mediate between me and Him. He is an all-loving and selfless entity who doesn’t expect pricey rituals and opulent gifts in return for granting my wishes.

15)Dissent : Starting gross catfights in public places only because the others disagree with your opinion, is clinching evidence to say that you are uncivilized, uncultured and crass.

Remember that if you worship Chiranjeevi, the other person might find it ridiculous that you worship a film actor who’s just doing his profession. We, as a part of literati should be able to respect the other person’s perspective no matter how different it is from ours.

16) Decency: When you make derogatory remarks, spread canards about somebody else’s personal life, turning their helplessness into your supreme advantage, it first dents your image in the society. As educated people working with firms of international repute, it’s better to suppress the temptation to turn on the rumor mill.

17) Expression: Remarks like “I’m not expressive, hence I don’t express. I’m not talkative, hence I don’t talk”, shoots the levels of frustration in people around. Is there a difference between you and a wayfarer on the road when you don’t express and talk to your own people?

18) Opposite gender: Limits between two friends of opposite genders are more demarcated in comparison with two friends of the same gender. It’s wise to be in total consciousness of these limits, which if crossed can usher unwarranted disturbances. Getting needlessly possessive and mawkish in such relations would spell doom.

19) Girls and the myth: From legends to ‘Pyaar Ka Punchnama’ – one phrase that reverberates along the length and breadth of the planet– ‘girls are difficult to understand’.

Just one addition to this universally accepted expression – ‘guys also’. I’ve seen extremely unpredictable and cranky people among girls and guys equally. So that makes every person unique and equally abstruse irrespective of gender.

20) People: People are generally compared to clouds which are of two kinds – passing and showering. A cloud might seem like a showering one at the outset, but beware!!! it might eventually give you the slip and pass off without you noticing. Our trust is too precious to be invested in a passing cloud.

21) Communication: A person with commendable communication skills but no knowledge often steals the thunder away from a person with enormous knowledge but poor skills in communication. God knows if this is injustice. But as humans we get drawn to people with the art of oration.

22) Responsibilities: As perfectly quoted by a person dear to me, ‘responsibilities should be fulfilled out of pleasure and not out of pressure’. A person whose shoulders are burdened with a flood of responsibilities is vulnerable to bouts of frustration and abandonment which has cascading repercussions at every stage of his/her life.

23) Marriage: An institution which can be compared to the seeds sown in soil. You can either reap a marvelous harvest or suffer a lethal catastrophe. This year I got to see one of the ideal couples in an ideal marriage. I was bowled over by the unfathomable extent to which a couple can love, understand and dedicate themselves to each other.

24) Parents: If there is something that is eternal, perennial and unchallenged, in this world fraught with cruel temporariness, it is precisely the love of our very own parents. Parents are those who’d choose to starve themselves in order to ensure that you have a sumptuous Bawarchi Biryani for dinner. Nobody in this world can ever match the quantum of love they have for us, for their love is selfless, immaculate, pure and matchless.

In a few old posts, I remember expressing my desire to journey backwards in time to relive certain precious moments. But now, there is a change in my school of thought. I am fond of my past but if given a chance, I wouldn’t choose to go back, for I’m totally in love with my present. I’d always cherish memories but would prefer living the current moment no matter how favorable or challenging the things are. Life is only about the present,neither the past nor the future.

The latter half of this year was journeyed on a not-so-smooth road; life and people continue to amaze me on a daily basis and I love the lessons I get to learn from them, for, in life there are no regrets,but only lessons.

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Dedicated to my family, my mom in particular, whose love,guidance, upbringing and relentless efforts for the past 24 years has made me whatever I’m today. She’s an ocean of inspiration, energy, emotional support and the sole purpose behind my very existence.

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On this occasion, I’d like to write a little about a few special ones who made my world much more beautiful and also helped me grow as a person in all these years …

Dhaston, Mirza and Sreekanth – Despite my inevitable shift to F9, Mr Sreeku’s exit from ADP, and the rest of the two joining a new team in LCC, ADP for me is synonymous to these three names. I spent the most memorable phase of my life with all the 3 of them.

Sreeku has always been the best gift which ADP gave me for I’ve enjoyed an unusual association with him. He contributed to a majority of those 24 gospels. My guide, mentor, senior and friend.

Dhaston - the czar of expressions and the indisputable sweetheart (a sweetheart is a person liked by all ra… That’s what I mean :P) of EZP –I bugged him beyond limits :D … One of the most decent human beings I got to meet and quite a close buddy.

and Mirza- who cloaks his sense of humor and funny side ina serious exterior(I feel like rofl when I say ‘serious’ :D ) – I can never stop laughing the moment he starts talking. My all-time chum here!! I really miss those days of fun!!

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Kiran Joshi: Perfect example to the fact that intimacy doesn’t depend on the number of years you know each other for. An association of just 6 Sundays in MAQ Software led to such an amazing friendship. I guess MAQ came my way only to introduce him to me; otherwise it was quite purposeless ;-)... The way he manages his rather huge circle without disappointing anyone is astounding... It’s just been 2 years and I feel I know him for decades!!

Gaya3: If you’ve heard that ‘ideal’ people don’t exist,then you’re totally mistaken as this girl is ample proof that ideal people do exist. She’s a rare collection of all the virtues in the world. She waves her magic wand and solves any kind of problem. ;-)

Annapurna: A storehouse of talent and courage, yet an epitome of humility which is going to take her places. A person to learn a lot from.

Divya: I could never have imagined my engineering days without her. She scores a 10 on 10 on the scale of friendship and goes to any extent to satisfy her friends. A professionally and personally successful person who is a role model to all of us.

Anil: The cutest amongst all my friends with whom nobody can ever have an issue. Very soft-spoken and innocent!! Takes a lot of pain in arranging surprises and meetings time and again for his friends. I’ve never seen anyone who’s so concerned about his people’s well being.

Aashish and Praveen: I take their names together for all the 3 of us have grown up together. Our association spanning between 1.5 to 2decades, these guys are the first ones I’d rush to with issues as I share an extraordinary intimacy with both of them. They are amongst the first few friends I made on earth. My precious ones!!

Sowmya: My first ever friend is she and I’ve known her for more than 20 years. Plays the role of a sole elder sister who kept looking after me, suggesting, guiding, pampering and sometimes chiding (;-)) me for such a very long time. One of my precious relationships and I wish her a very happy married life.

***I couldn’t help but leave the list unfinished owing to privacy concerns of a few. Nonetheless thanking and acknowledging the contributions of the unmentioned ones.

Closing this long discussion with a lot of regard to all my teachers in school and college, every other schoolmate and college mate,classmates, seniors, juniors, my colleagues, people I worked with in GLT and MAQ, the people who follow my blog without commenting, people who comment on my blog incognito, neighbors, cousins, aunts and uncles, acquaintances, critics –in short every other person I stumbled upon during this duration of 24 years.I’m sure each of you must have had some influence or the other on me.

Meet you all very soon on this space again!!

Lots of luv,

Tarun/Parthu :D