Month: June 2023

The lapse

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

There was an orangish hue in the sky that evening. The sun was setting and a gentle breeze had had a good effect on the man, standing at the balcony in his high rise apartment in the heart of the city.

He had been a very successful entrepreneur. His startup had been a recognised and celebrated one, with successful operations across the country.

And yet, he felt that he hadn’t done enough. He was contemplating that day what he could do to change things. And as he stared at the setting sun and faced the gentle breeze, his mind drifted back into his past.

He remembered the days spent in his college, when he made great friends and amazing mistakes. And within all that mayhem, managed to do well in studies to secure a high paying corporate job.

It was only his self-insistence to do something different that had led him to move out of that job after a couple of years and roam around the country to absorb things.

As he recalled more, he remembered how while travelling the remotest parts of the country, he had hit upon his business idea. And how he had worked at perfecting the concept, not worrying about the time lost or what others would think.

After a few months of deliberations, he had then launched the startup and hit a home goal from the beginning. There were a fair share of hits and misses but the idea had merit and his startup constantly inched forward, to prove itself to its customers in the remotest towns and villages.

He had then expanded his horizons to provide multiple ancillary services. Again on the back of his insights that he continued to gather through his inland tours every few months.

Ten years had passed since the last time he had travelled inland. Increasing pressure on him and the demands on his time made him stop those. And slowly, with the influx of more senior managers, he had taken a back seat to enjoy the fruits of his labour.

It was only this late in life he was realising that it had not been enough. He had yearned to do more but somehow had ended up short.

Not for the want of desire. But for the lack of consistency to continue on the path he had set for himself.

He stepped back a bit, absorbed the evening, and breathed heavily. It was time to reset himself on the path. To walk again toward the destination he had set for himself.

For what he aspired for was still some distance away. In spite of the lapse, there was still time. He could yet walk on his path and reach his goal…

Exposure

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

We strive for learning. Well, most of us, I presume. And getting exposed to various things is the best education I believe.

Today, while at my hometown, I was having a chat with my brother and we were discussing about how exposure helps.

Exposure to different people. To different ideas. To things we haven’t experienced before. To a life we haven’t lived before.

I was giving my own example of how my thinking has evolved and how I grew as a person as I got opportunities to learn from new settings and people.

Right from studying in different schools, to going to college in bigger cities. From working in different jobs to running my own business. From living in India to living abroad during my MBA and now.

Each such new experience also provided me with avenues to explore myself. To learn and unlearn. And to open up my mind to things which I hadn’t known or seen before.

Those new experiences enlarged my thought canvas. It helped me broaden my horizon. It made me realise my strengths and weaknesses. And above all, it helped me meet different people and experience different cultures, which make me who I am today.

I may not like something or I may enjoy a particular setting more than some thing else. But there’s no denying the learning part.

As we discussed this, we talked about how the current generation is experiencing many more things today than what we did when we were young.

That exposure is providing them with options in life that we hadn’t thought about. And it’s helping them be more clear about what they want or don’t want in life.

And that’s crucial to their growth individually. Because the more exposure we get and the faster we get it, the better it is.

Here’s to the success of this new generation then. And to making us much more aware of things we haven’t experienced ourselves…

Familiarity

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

It’s strange how our mind finds comfort in things that are familiar and yet it expands when we leave that familiarity to venture into something new.

This weekend, as we travelled to India for a trip back home, there was a lot of nostalgia in my head. I had been missing Bangalore for a while, with all its amazing people and food. After all, I have lived there for ten years.

After we got off at the airport and in the one day I spent there, a lot of old memories whizzed past in my mind. Whether it was driving past some familiar roads or landmarks, or eating at some familiar joints, I had a great day.

I met with some known folks around and plan to catch up with many more when I get back to the city after a couple of weeks and spend more time working from our office there. Not to forget, all the nostalgia of traffic that hit me in pockets whenever we got stuck somewhere and how it reminded me of the time I will spend jostling around when I am there!

On my way to my home town, I was thinking about the solitary day and the joy it gave me. How familiar everything was and it didn’t feel like I was returning after six months of being in the US…

It then stuck me that this isn’t a one off case with me, or perhaps many people. We find comfort in familiarity and seek it out subconsciously. But it also sometimes lulls us into rhythms that we don’t appreciate much. That, in some cases, restricts us from exploring new things which we may like or dislike.

And then, before we know it, we get steeped into a mindset that stops welcoming change in that sphere. Knowing fully well that change is the only constant, we avoid it or try and bypass it. Without much success, I must add.

The only way that I think works universally to unlock our horizons is when we force ourselves upon a new situation. A new role at work, a new subject to study at school or college, a new country to explore backpacking across, are all examples of this self-enforced mechanism that helps expand our horizons.

It may not necessarily be a successful outcome for us in all cases. We may fail in the new subject, or in the new role, or may not be able to adjust in the new place. But it does give us an experience. For life.

These experiences, in my opinion, are what make us who we are. Constantly throughout our life. Irrespective of what they entail or leave behind.

There’s definitely value in familiarity and we all know it. But there’s also value in seeking out challenges and changes. The more we mix the two, the better the outcomes for us I believe!

World building

~ Rishi ~ Leave a comment

I have always marvelled at the way in which writers build a world. Something that the consumer of that story can read or watch or listen to, and get fascinated by.

However I didn’t know how hard it is to do so. Until this year when I started going deeper into the subject.

Well, I got a glimpse of it when I wrote a few short stories last year. Or as I read through some broad-canvassed fiction like the Lord of the Rings (which by the way was portrayed very well with multiple nuances in the films)!

But I hadn’t imagined the difficulty yet.

Since the beginning of the year, I have been working with my dad to translate my grandfather’s magnum opus that we recently published in the original form. It is written in verse in Hindi and Sanskrit, so I have taken it upon myself to translate it in English and make it available to a wider audience.

As I have ventured on that path, and am reading through the original script in detail, I sometimes sit back and wonder. About how my grandfather managed to write such eloquent and detailed a book about something so commonly known in Indian mythology. And about my own ability to bring it out in my adaptation.

It is hard to imagine. And to put that imagination into words. Words that make a story look real and relatable.

Kudos to writers who do this well. In fact, most of the famous books ride on this world building. The reader feels immersed in the alternate universe that’s created in the pages. And that’s what beholds people to that literary work. Same is true for any art form which leave a lasting impression upon us.

As I reflected deeply on this aspect this past week, I realised that we all have similar opportunities in our daily lives.

Apart from being consumers of content, we are also producers of some other content in our daily lives. It might be some document or presentation at work, some work assigned from our college or school, or even in our daily lives when we talk to our children and narrate them stories.

We have an opportunity to build something that can be as immersive or interesting as the books we read or the films we watch. However, we don’t do that most of the times…

We rather focus on the here and now to get things done. To submit on time. To finish within the deadline. To get done and move on.

What if we changed our focus to doing what’s on our hands in the best way possible? Where the person who looks at our work can relate to it and go back with a feeling of having come across something beautifully done.

Perhaps the key is to think of it as a story revolving around us and how the details give out how we perceive our world or the one around us…