People and understanding

People... I don't know why but I always find people really interesting... I guess all the people on earth are the same on the inside... They're all delicate frameworks, models of glass with a very beautiful inner core. The point is all of us our basically emotional creatures who expect the whole world to behave rationally. ( Quite a lot of expectation I guess!)

I tried out this point Mr Stephen Covey keeps talking about - " Seek first to understand and then to be understood " and really the results were dramatic. Generally when we talk, we're talking about ourselves, we're reading out our autobiographies that's it. When the other person speaks, we're thinking of what we should say next or what the other guy's thinking about us or we're judging him/her subtly. We may deny it but I think all of us keep doing this in most of our conversations. We hardly pay attention to what the other fellow is saying.

Suppose I and my friend disagree on a point. I'll try to tell him my point of view while parallelly he'll try to tell me his point of view. Both of us are concentrating on our own point of view and how to better express it, then how on earth can we catch up with what the other guy is saying?

Seeking first to understand means that i first listen completely and wholly to my what my friend is saying forgetting myself and my ramblings for the moment. I completely understand and reaffirm what he's saying and only then after I've got his point better than he himself has got it, do I put forth my point. I don't just shut up and take notes, but I understand him first instead of babbling away to glory. The wonder of wonders is that he too will now listen to me completely without too many interruptions which means both of us will get our point across and arrive at a synergistic solution. A synergistic solution is a solution which is better than what I propose and also better than what you propose - its good for both of us and its much much better. It comes from a true understanding of any situation from two opposing perspectives at the same time and accepting the situation as it actually is. It emerges from a conversation that's got both courage and compassion elements to it rather than courage bla bla only. Courage is the ability to put forth your point of you irrespective of what the other fellow'll think of you. Compassion is respecting the other person and his point of view as an individual.

I think this is getting too much so I'll stop here...

Dream, Dream, Dream...

Dreams are such beautiful things. They are wonderful. Most of the time they are so unachievable, so surreal and so improbable.
All dreams have some common aspects attached to them and it is so, oh so important to understand these aspects if I have to have any chance whatsoever to fulfill my dream.


Meghu’s Dream Postulates:
Every dream can come true if I try hard enough. There is nothing, absolutely nothing stronger than the power of the indomitable spirit.

All dreams are beautiful. No dream is low or high. It is natural to think that one’s dream is too foolish or useless. But human beings are beautiful beings. They dream and whatever they dream is beautiful.

Only one dream out of a hundred dreams comes true. But this is not because there is some problem with the 99 dreams. If I don’t get admission in a college, it could be because there aren’t enough good colleges around. But there is scope and space for all the dreams of every being to come true. 99 Dreams don’t come true because human beings succumb to negative thoughts, or because they don’t believe enough in the beauty of their dreams.

All dreams are different and all dreams are the same – all of them require a positive attitude, belief in oneself and in the beauty of the dream, a desperate desire, proper planning (optional but will also help), persistence despite ‘n’ failures and hard work.

When we believe in our dream and work for it, the whole Universe works to help us achieve it.
There will be hundred problems and a hundred failures. But every problem, yes every problem is an opportunity to rise higher and go forth faster and stronger.

Auld Lang Syne

How does a person feel when he returns back to his alma mater after 30 years?
Auld Lang Syne means – "Those times gone by" in Scottish (I think it is Scottish but I’m not sure.)

It’s been 30 years, Thirty years?!
Why! Wasn’t it yesterday?
Why don’t the words come? And these tears?
Somebody shouts "Oray"!


I look around. Friends hug me
From all sides. And suddenly
It all returns. A sea
Of emotion strangles me.


We babble away, about Those Days…
We stutter, we stumble but its fine.
Its our hearts which are talking
About the days of Auld Lang Syne.

Those playful pranks come alive again,
In our words. Those ragging tricks,
Those late night teas, those games in the rain…
And, "Oh Yes", adds someone, "The election antics!"


And we talk and chatter away into the night,
As once we’d done in those cramped rooms,
How holy these dorms seem in the moonlight!
Even those lectures, those H2S fumes!

"Love, naiveté, friendship, marks;
We left them 30 years ago",
I think. In the distance a dog barks.
But midnight cannot stop our flow!


Life has been full of ups and downs.
Full of conquests and triumphs.
Full of careers and marriages.
Full of cities and houses.


But right now, we’ve shed our cloaks,
Our fancy clothes and ties and bows.
In the midst of these ubiquitous motes,
We’re all in vests but I can see the halos…


And right now, as the wind blows,
And the dawn enters – we’re free again.
As over the horizon, the sun shows
Up,we play again, we fight again.