Guru Purnima 2009

It was September of 2008 in Dallas. I stepped into the banquet hall of Holiday Inn for my very first Art of Living Part 1 course. It was a very strange feeling. Sitting there waiting for the course to start, I suddenly remembered the crystal merchant in The Alchemist. The crystal merchant had a dream of going to a pilgrimage. But he never sets off because he feels that having the dream is more important than fulfilling it.

And slowly I thought about those last 6 years when I had thought of doing this course. In a certain way, I was doing what the crystal merchant did. I kept on postponing registering for the course. Over these years I had transformed from a happy go lucky, totally carefree (sometimes even careless) engineering student to a very hard(ly) working, utterly frustrated, disillusioned software engineer. The transformation was not sudden but very rapid. And I had no reason to be unhappy. There was no event which was causing me this unhappiness. But everything seemed stressed and the mostly smiling and joking around Anusha had given way to smiling wryly and joking sarcastically Anusha. Anusha was not happy about it at all.

Life after college usually makes you alone, specially if you are at work. You do not have friends with you to joke with. You have to be careful about what you say in office. Your personal life involves going to malls and multiplexes every weekend and cursing inflation and Bollywood, eating out at every opportunity and realizing how much you miss a decent meal, networking a lot in office to climb the corporate ladder and missing those cool college friends. All this was making me wonder, what makes us happy? I was happier with a lot less money and more physically challenged life in college. Trust me people, the result of all this thinking was some strain in every relationship I had. Not that this was the only thing happening to me. Luckily, I had Varsha with me and a few good friends still in touch. And that made every stress worth it. I could just live through. And I can never thank those precious few enough. They were the reason for some of the very good times I had in Pune. Now, I had heard about the AOL course in college. I wanted to do it for I had a curiosity to see what was in it. But for some reason (excuses really) or the other I was not able to. Sometimes I did not have a ride, sometimes I did not have time. By the time I was in Pune, I felt it had become a need for me to do it. And not doing it was causing even more frustration.

But strange are the ways of life. I could finally register for it here in USA when I had just left the thing to fate. Sitting in the banquet hall, I was looking back at those 6 years and wondering if I am dreaming. When Ram officially started the course, I remember saying it to myself. "So Anusha, finally!". And the rest, as they say in AOL, is all mystery.

It has not been a very long time. I am still taking small baby steps in this great path. But I know how much my life has changed. Trust me, I am more alone than I ever was. But I don't feel lonely. I have more work than ever, but I don't feel stressed as I used to, and every week I have a way to revive myself. I sleep less than I used to back in Pune, but my energy levels are much higher. I don't meet as many people as I used to, but I look forward to every human interaction and I smile like I used to as a teenager. And then those small things which just start happening. Miracles, magics, coincidences - call them whatever you want, but they start happening more frequently. Things are just taken care of.

I was bearing life (on second thoughts, it was not that bad) I was going through the motions of life, I am living it now. And you really need to experience that to know what I am saying. Really!

All this because of the grace of Guru. And all I want to do is thank the source and cause of all these changes. Fortunately for me, I can do it on this Guru Purnima. (Thanks RR for helping me overcome my small mind gymnastics). If you can make it to Chicago, please come. If you cannot, wherever you are, thank your Guru. They are just too good. If you think you are yet to find your Guru, keep praying and keep looking. It is just a matter of time.

Trends!

All right. So the voting is on, though the turnout is something like we had in the general elections earlier this year. Or are there only 13 readers of this blog? 13, wow, nice. Though, I came to know about some miscreants who tried to booth capture and have multiple votes. And were brave enough to tell me that! :D

You had such wonderful options for answering why you read this blog. The voting trend so far has been nothing what I thought it would be. The option “Others” got the maximum votes. Except Megha, no one specified what their other reasons are, which makes me wonder even more. If you think by not giving the reason you have given me sleepless nights, then I would say my dear, you are absolutely right! Why not when you have the option? :-O

One might think, based on these votes, that the majority has some other reason to read this blog. But I don’t think majority thinks that. If you group in a slightly different way, you would see that the majority has one of the known reasons to come here. 8 Votes have been for one of the reasons I gave. But the interesting factor comes now. I am seeing that blogger poll gives the vote percentages as well (so kind of them considering my Mathematics abilities) and I will use those. 41% think they have a better reason to come to the blog. 16% think that they visit this blog because they have a bad habit of reading it, 16% think were bribed, 16% think that they were blackmailed and another 16% swear they do not visit at all. Now if we have “Others” in one group (41%) and the “remaining others” (16 + 16 + 16 + 16 = 64%) in another, then, wait, lo and behold, I have had a voter turnout of 64 + 41 = 105%!! :D

Did I complain of a low turnout?? :P

Bade bade deshon mein aisi choti choti baatein hota rehta hain, Senorita! :-)

Poll

Salaam Namaste!

I was wondering what to write. I thought I would write about the San Antonio trip. But there was nothing funny to write about that trip. Except the fact that we spent a lot of time on road waiting for the traffic to clear (it was a long weekend). Also the fact that I saw Nature in action at the Natural Bridge Caverns. Or even the fact that I sat on the Great White ride at Sea World for like infinite times. Jisha (my school friend) was sure that I was doing that deliberately to insult the authorities there. It was supposed to be their most awesome ride..

I also thought I could ride something about the most tiring experience I had in USA. I moved. Moved as in, shifted my apartment. I wish there was a Ctrl + X and Ctrl + V in life! Shifting would have been so easy. But there was nothing really to it. I just made infinite rounds from one apt to another and dumped stuff in my new apt. I was missing Shalabh and Nitin so much for reasons described here.

So I thought I will start a poll. I have been doing some thinking about the existance of this blog. I want to see why people come here (if at all they do). So people, here is your chance to speak against the tortures in life. You should see a teeny-weeny poll on the left side of your screen. If your reason is not listed, please select other and you can give your reason as a comment!

We may consider changes here. This is your chance of saving yourselves. Voting is your fundamental right!! :-)