Its all in the mind

Life.

Everyone sees it through different eyes. The very beauty of life lies in its diversity. It offers joy. It offers sorrow. It offers thrill. It offers boredom. And it offers all these in varying proportions – its all roses to few, all thorns to others & a mix of both to the remaining.

Whatever it is, the stark truth is that once you are sailing in life you have to encounter all this. How you take what life offers you defines your character.

It is a universal truth that every human being walking on this planet is unique. That does not mean that the rules of the game for all the people are unique. Based on the geographical location, upbringing, past, peers, friends, other associations & profession there might be a slight variation in how the encounters are greeted by an individual. But it would not be wrong if we broadly conclude that everyone gets a fair share of everything that life offers.

The musings which follow are on the general events that man goes though in life. I’m not a spiritual guru or an old man who’s experienced everything about life. Nor am I a philosopher or the oracle. I have always believed in listening to everyone & finally doing what your heart tells you to do. It is great to read the Geeta, Bible Quran, Osho, Robin Sharma, Paulo Coelho etc.. as long as you can give it a practical thought & implement what feels right for you, rather than blindly following whatever is written in them.

Similarly I’m just pouring my thoughts over different topics of discussion. It is totally your discretion whether to believe it, learn from it, put it into practice or just keep it aside as one more line of thought. My intention is to learn & put forth my views as I’m struggling through this journey.

How difficult can 24 hrs be?

It was noon & I was at a customer's site near Kapu. I rushed to Udupi, leaving my work unfinished to honour an appointment. For 3 hours I sat with this customer trying to get an order released. It was for a very small value. Nevertheless, I was keen. When I was starving for orders, no other starvation gets noticed. I sat through the afternoon & came out empty handed - we did not agree upon the price.

I had an evening train to catch from my native, Puttur, which was 130 kms away. On the way back I dropped in at the Kapu site to complete the unfinished work.

Meanwhile I got a call from another site in Mangalore. They wanted me to come & give some technical clarifications. I wrapped up from one site & drove to the next. This was really tough - the interior roads were very bad as lot of construction work was going on all along the way. As usual my phone was continuously screaming for attention & I was attending customers at various degrees of dissatisfaction.

When I reached the M'lore site, the customer said that everything was fine & he did not need me. It was 1800 hrs. I had 3 hrs to catch the train; wherein I had to get out of this site, through the bad roads, 25 kms to Mangalore & another 52 kms to Puttur.

And then I decided to take the short-cut - it was not the highway, but would cut the distance short by 15 kms. I was cruising fine when I hit a traffic jam.. There was a festival at Polali temple & the road was blocked for almost 5 kms.. probably the only day of the year when traffic halted on this road; & it had to drag me in... It took me 50 min to get out of it - my anger being harnessed by old melodies on the car stereo.

Once out of the jam I floored the throttle. It was dark. The road was single lane & very curvy. But I had to catch the train; I had to stop an order getting lost in Bangalore the next morning. There was no room for carefulness.

I loved the Indica for once - you will be amazed the way it takes on steep curves & the bumps. Extremely stable for something on 4 wheels.

I reached home at 2030 hrs, changed, packed & left within 5 min. I reached the railway station 5 min before the train reached.

No, the ordeal did not end there. I had a RAC ticket which got confirmed after 2 hrs. I was standing most of the time as an old lady was already sleeping on my part of the berth. I slept after a mid-night dinner.

The next day dawned to lot more chaos. One of our machine had got stuck at the check-post & the authorities had already slapped a huge penalty on it. The customer, who was the cause for this hold-up, acted oblivious of the situation. Nobody else was shouldering the responsibility. The transporter was behind me to get his truck released. I had no other option - being a one man army for the state, you don't get the luxury of delegating work.

I sighed. One more issue among the many others: delayed delivery, service issues, spare parts unavailable, sky-high expectations of the customers & on the backdrop of all this melee, the ever inviting noose of "Come what may, you need to achieve your numbers.."

I wonder if I'm wearing the right shoes??