A Life with Ulcerative Colitis - Part 4

 Happy days are here again

After 10 months, I was finally free of medicines. More importantly, I was free of any UC symptoms. Things were looking brighter. I slowly started my walks; while I was not comfortable walking in the mornings, my walks in the evening were wonderful. I would put on my shoes, get my headphones and start listening to a discourse by Velukudi. A 30 minute walk to the beach, 30 minutes sitting on the water line looking at the waves and a 30 minute back home was pure bliss. Slowly the total time extended to 2 hours with me walking between 8-10 km. After a month or so, I started running again. Yes, running after almost after one year. This was a huge plus for me - my mind started getting better and fitness improved. 

After 2 months, I completed my first self timed 5 km run in  more than one year. This was a huge achievement for me. It was like I found my mojo back. Slowly over the next 2 months I started running daily. My interest towards life got better. I went out to eat a few times. I even started singing in my shower 🤣😁 (btw, I think I am next only to SPB / KJ Yesudas when I sing in my shower) 

Everything was going fine, but little did I realize life had a surprise in store for me.

One fine morning, my mother had a fall. The dr after seeing the X-rays, told us that she had a fracture in her vertebrae and has to be in complete bed rest for next 3 months. The next 3  months, I brushed up my cooking skills, more importantly understood my kitchen cleaning abilities  🤣. The only thing that I was happy for during this 6 months was that my health was normal. After 3.5 months of kitchen duty, my mother limped back to the kitchen, literally but within next 2-3 weeks she was once again the Queen of the Kitchen relieving me of cooking duties. I have to say one thing here - my mother’s patience and ability to tolerate things - she had to eat my cooking  for over 3 months 🤣🤦‍♂️☹️.

During these 4-6 months, I stopped my evening walks. I was always beside her to take care of her. One thing became sure during this period - MOTHERS ARE LIVING GODS. I realized how much care, affection and sleepless days and nights she had put in take care of my when I was a baby, or a young kid, or sometimes being an ill adult. It took another 3-4 months before I was comfortable to leave her alone to restart my walking. 

By the time I restarted it was almost 10 months since I was completely free of medicines. I started with vigour again. But the illness came back again. This time with higher intensity. The flare up was bad. So bad, that for the next 2-3 months, I left home only to visit my dr, or go for some diagnostic tests.

What did my latest flare up do to my new found happiness and confidence? Did it dent these? How did I cope with these. More later.

A Life with Ulcerative Colitis - Part 3

As I walked out after consulting with my dr, I thought that life would be easy, now that I had medicines for 6 months. I thought keeping myself stress free, along with the medications will cure my symptoms and get me into remission quickly. Also, having seen my late father with arthritis I thought this autoimmune disease was manageable. Little did I realize it was easier said than done

The first few weeks with my new medication did not bring in any change. I still had blood in my stools, had to visit the toilet multiple times in a day. My mornings were bit stressful, as I was always had the feeeling that my bowels were not completely emptied and therefore could not leave the comfort of my house. Prior to being diagnosed with UC (Ulcerative Colitis), i was a regular runner, having run several 10 km races. I used to run 4-6 days a week. Now I could not go out for run because i was not sure when I will have to visit the toilet. The first casualty in the long list of things that I loved doing was running. Little did I realize that this was the first among the long list of things that i would miss doing / or lose in the years to come.

It took me nearly 3 months to stabilize a bit. By the end of 3 months, the bleeding had stopped. My biggest worry of that point in time had come to an end. Cutting a long story short, it took another 6 months for me get control over my bowel movement and for it to regularize a bit. As a corollary of my condition, my dr warned me that I can never be constipated and had to drink 4-5 litres of water every day. I used to drink 2 litres a day, and my dr wanted me to at least double it. He wanted me to start my day drinking 1 litre of water on empty stomach. Wow, the first few weeks of starting on this new regimen of water consumption, i would have spent more time in the toilet than on my couch, especially in the mornings as I could not hold my bladder.. 😁😁🤣

After about 9-10 months, most of my symptoms had gone and dr said I can stop medication for now. I was extremely happy. But he warned me that the situation can become bad any time. This disease is like burning embers, it can become a fire anytime were his words. I was not concerned about any of this at that point in time. After 10 months, it was like a new found freedom. I started my running again. I wanted to better my previous personal best for a 10 km race. I started eating out a few times. The next few months, I was a like a prisoner released from jail. Happy. Not bothered by illness. A free bird.

I even managed to run a 5 km self paced race after 10 months. That gave me the confidence that better things were in store for me. 

But did it last long? Guess, I was not ready for a diffent kind of surprise that life as about to throw at me. More on that later. 

A Life with Ulcerative Colitis - Part 2

Yesterday, I wrote about the initial days of my illness and the diagnosis. Well things were not all that easy as I mentioned.

When I noticed the first symptoms, blood in stool, I was a bit scared. Then, when I had to rush to the toilet several times a day, I was getting concerned. Blood and mucus in the stool, is something that I was not used to seeing. Initially when my Dr told me it could be due to an infection, I was kind of satisfied that it’s something that will go away shortly.  But when days started to become weeks, but still no signs of symptoms of going away, i was getting jittery.

After 3 weeks, when my gastroenterologist asked me for family history and if any one had suffered from any form of IBD (Irritable Bowel Disease), I said no but an uncle colorectal cancer. When I saw the look on his face change, and he immediately suggesting me to get a colonoscopy done, that’s when I thought something was serious. I asked him, if it was anything to be worried, he said no but just get the test done immediately.

As I had mentioned yesterday, the preparation of the test was something unimaginable. Even in my bad mood, I will not think of this for my worst enemy. On the day of the test, the surgeon said he will give me a mild general anesthetic I was thankful that my brother had accompanied me. Thambi udayaan padaikku anjaan. By now, my mother was afraid to send me alone to dr and had my brother accompany me on all dr visits 🤣🤦‍♂️

Finally, after knowing that i did not have cancer and with a big weight off my chest, we (remember, my brother was accompanying me) visited my gastroenterologist once again. The dr went through the test reports in detail. He was happy that it was not cancerous but said that it was a bit of concern that it was Ulcerative Colitis.

He said that this disease is an autoimmune disease and there is no cure. He explained in detail about it. Since my father had arthritis, i knew what autoimmune disease was. He said that the symptoms will keep appearing once in a while and I will have to be on medication for prolonged period of time. He sad stress alleviates the symptoms and asked me if I was having stress at my work. I just laughed it and said I was happily retired for almost 3 years. He said may be that itself was stressful. He then asked me if I was doing pranayama and gayathri japam daily. When i said no, he said if you were doing these, you will not have got this condition and advised me to do meditation for 30 minutes daily after writing a prescription for 6 months 😁😁😁 He said he meditated for 1 hour daily that keeps him stress free. 

He told me there will be periods when symptoms will be very bad (flare up) and when things will be normal (remission). So, be prepared. I still remember my brother’s comment, i thought we were coming to a dr instead looks like we met a lifestyle guru.

As we were walking out, I thought I was prepared to face this condition. But was I?

More later…

A Life with Ulcerative Colitis - Part 1

Part 1

About six years ago, in mid April 2015, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. The day the test results came and I met my gastroenterologist was a BIG turning point in my life. I didn’t know so then.

First, a bit of medical terminology from Webmd

What Is Ulcerative Colitis?

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory bowel disease. It causes irritation, inflammation, and ulcers in the lining of your large intestine (also called your colon).

There’s no cure, and people usually have symptoms off and on for life. But the right treatments can help you keep a handle on the disease.

Ulcerative Colitis Causes and Risk Factors

Ulcerative colitis happens when your immune system makes a mistake. Normally, it attacks invaders in your body, like the common cold. But when you have UC, your immune system thinks food, good gut bacteria, and the cells that line your colon are the intruders. White blood cells that usually protect you attack the lining of your colon instead. They cause the inflammation and ulcers.

The main symptom of ulcerative colitis is bloody diarrhea. There might be some pus in your stools, too.

How did it start for me?

Well one fine day, I found blood in my stools. I got a bit flustered and went to my Dr. He prescribed some antibiotics and asked me to come back after a week. Bleeding continued after a week, and he advised me to see a gastroenterologist. Physical examination followed by more medicines for 2 more weeks. Still no cure. He referred to another dr to get a colonoscopy done to examine my large intestine . The colonoscopy was a 20 minute diagnostic procedure, but the preparation was the height. I was given a powder to be mixed with 2 litres of water and drunk in 2 hours. I was told that it would cleanse my entire digestive tract. Little did I know, that it will be like PKS (movie) Abbas getting a stomach wash - nenjula irukara manja soru mothamum vanthurthu 🤣🤣🤣. I was like, will there anything be left to diagnose, especially if my large intestine is going to come out. Next day, post colonoscopy, the dr said give this sample for biopsy to test for cancer. I was shocked. The results they said would come after a week… 

The next week was a killer. I couldn’t sleep at nights dreading the results. Thankfully, after a week, I got my results saying no cancerous cells. I took these reports to my gastroenterologist and had a long discussion with him. He said I had Ulcerative Colitis, an autoimmune disease and enquired about family history. I said my dad had arthritis, another autoimmune disease and an uncle had passed away due to colorectal cancer. He said he will start me on medications immediately. Initially, he said, he will give me medicines for 6 months, but I need to see him every 2 months. First few months were ok, but then fun started later on.

More on this later…

2021 & Beyond - Good Health

Good Health is my first priority for 2021 and beyond.

I will start with physical health. Over the last several years, I understood that certain aspects of health were not under my control. 2021 made me realize that fully. So, I just told myself that “ to become and staying happy”, I just need to set aside the things that were not under my control. After this became a lifestyle mantra, other things started to follow easily.

My plan for good physical health started with good eating, sleeping and physical activity. 

Good diet was not much of a problem, given that I could eat or should not eat was governed by my doctor. Therefore the focus turned on to eating on time or rather not eating at untimely hours. Starting November, I slowly started to get this into some bit of control. I started following some of the things that I was told earlier by either my Pranic healer or by a nutritionist. My Pranic healer used to say that its very bad to drink coffee or tea first thing in the morning, as both these (especially coffee) are highly acidic. He advised me to drink a glass of warm or chilled milk first thing in the morning and drink my coffee after 45-60 minutes. I started this on a daily basis. Also, due to realignment of my medications, was forced to have breakfast around 8 am. While I have not seen much of a benefit in the short time, I think this will definitely lead to an improvement over a period of time.  

The next focus was on physical activity. I used to run a fair bit before May (including during lockdown, when I used to run inside my house or my apartment complex), but then a 2-month flare up of my ulcerative colitis put a stop to this. So had to restart my running. After about month being locked up due to my corona illness, when i first started to run, I could not do my usual distance or pace. I attributed this to a combination of my lack of activities for over 3 months and post COVID issues. Therefore, I started walking again. At the same time, I started some of the yoga stretches I used to do a few years ago to improve my flexibility as well as strengthen my lower back. This became a routine for about 4-5 weeks. Then out of the blue, Netflix said you can watch stuff for free for a weekend. I downloaded so much stuff that I am still watching for 3 weeks, that my walking / yoga sessions have almost literally stopped. The last 2 weeks made me realize that getting into discipline is very hard. You cannot have distractions. So, starting the whole routine again this week. The plan now is to start regular morning and evening walks, morning yoga and may be weekend cycling. Let’s see how this goes. I will update this routine again at the end of January.

The third leg of my 3-legged stool called good physical health is good sleep. A lot of us, including myself in my earlier days give the least importance to sleep - both the duration and the quality. While I used to get  my quota of sleep, I always felt that I could do better on the quality of sleep. My doctor kept telling me for last 5 years to sleep early and wake up early. We all learnt in this in primary school - “Early bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise”. Somehow, our later education made us “wise enough” to both forget this proverb and discard it as unnecessary. Add to this our technology advancement. A couple of decades ago, not many in India new about baseball, basketball or American football. In the last twenty years, with friends and relatives in the US, and technology bringing these sports to our living rooms (and to our handheld devices, in the recent past months), our sleep patterns has been disturbed by “live sports”. I used to watch sports, movies etc sometimes beyond midnight. To correct this, I told myself that I will get to bed early. But because I was used to sleeping late, just by getting to bed early did not make me sleep early. I turned the way around - I started getting up by 5 am. After a few days, my body became tired and I had to sleep by 9:30 pm. This became a routine, and for last 4 weeks or so, i am sticking to a 9:30 pm bed time and 5 am wake up alarm. While I have not felt any benefits of this now, this helped me in my next step to happiness - good mental health. More on that tomorrow.

 

2021 and Beyond ...

As I said yesterday, the last 6 weeks has made me think of what next, including coming up with a plan for 2021 and more importantly, for the rest of my life..

I always like to put pen to paper when i think. As I started writing, the first thing i wrote was what i wanted in life / out of life - the answer was a single, simple word, “happiness”. This seemed to simplistic and kind of unrealistic. The next question that came up was “what is happiness”. This answer somehow was too difficult and I am yet to get it. I therefore focused my thoughts on “what i need to do to achieve happiness”. This question, seemed a lot more easier one to answer, but i found that there was no single or simple answer. A few more days, hacking my brain, a bit of reading some of our scriptures, a book about an elite athlete and a coupe of courses gave me some pointers.

This is what I found. To be happy, I need to

1. Be in good health - physically and mentally
2. Look back in the past, think of good times and try to repeat or do similar activities
3. Be useful, or helpful to everyone who asked for my help.

After some more time of thinking, I felt everything that I could think of, could be put into one of these three things.

Before I elaborate on the above, I will take a step back and explain my philosophy of life. For more than 15 years, I have always felt that everything in our life can be put into 2 buckets: Needs and Wants. The more we confine ourselves to our needs and minimize our wants, we can lead a happy and a fulfilling life. Now, with this is the background, I started to detail out a plan for 2021 and rest of my life.

1. Be in good health:

For over 15 years, i have suffered severe back pain on and off due to disc degeneration. I have visited multiple doctors, gone through a whole lot of treatment and therapy, starting from physiotherapy sessions to Ayurvedic treatments to yoga. At a point 12 years ago, a doctor said I have to wear an orthopedic belt to support my back for the rest of my life and have to be extremely careful even when doing small things like getting up and down a footpath on the road. It took me several years to get over that (after I changed the doctor and the mode of treatment), when one fine day in 2015 I ran my first 10 km race.

Over the last 5 years, my ulcerative colitis, an autoimmune disorder (which is supposed to be part of my life) has put in a lot of restrictions on what i can do and cannot. These have taught me the importance of good physical health. I realized that if I need to have happiness, I should be healthy. While somethings cannot be changed, others are under our control. This line of thinking made me realize this most important truth of my life: “try to control the controllables, and leave to God the uncontrollables”. This was also the first step to my next part of the plan - good mental health. A strong mind leads to a strong body. We have all read this, or been told or taught this. But more often than not, we neglect this. I now decided to put a plan for building my mental health as well.

2. Repeat past good things

As I progressed further, I thought of what made me happy in the past. I identified several things that made me happy including temple visits, travel, books, unplanned trips etc. So, the key was to repeat these things in the future to get happiness. As they say, invest in experiences instead of things, because experiences makes us happy over a longer period than things. 

Having identified the areas, I started my plan. More importantly, I decided i would do things that would change my life one step at a time. Wait until tomorrow to read my plan and the runway, and if the early successes and failures.

2020 - The Googly Year

I recently read a tweet - “Hindsight is 2020 was a probably said by a time traveler from the future”. 😁 How true. No one saw such a year coming, including all the astrologers who came on TV on 1st Jan 2020 and predicted a wonderful 2020.

The year had turned the lives of a lot of people beyond recognition - people lost their lives, lost their loved ones, lost jobs, had to walk hundreds of kilometers without food and water back to their homes and many more. These were, as usual, the people who were less fortunate.

On the personal front, I was better off, with just some minor inconveniences. I belong to the more fortunate group of people, having never bothered about a roof over my head, or walls to protect me from natures vagaries, always comfortable to know that my next hot meal will be served when due and nicely clothed. So, while this year, did not affect me much, I had my own ups and downs. Some very positive happenings, time periods to pretty bad periods. 

The first two months, like for most of us, were very good. I was into my fitness routine, clocking 20 km of running every week, reading a fair bit, and in general trying to enjoy lie. A trip to Puri in February was a highlight for this year. I had booked a trip about year ago, and had to cancel it then. May be, Lord Jaganath did not want me to come and see Him then. While this time, I was blessed to spend 5 days in Puri, with close to 10 hours every day inside the temple complex, either at the Darshan, listening to the Bhajans or watching the flag changing ceremony. A few more days at Bhubaneswar and Konark rounded a beautiful trip. This trip made me understand myself a bit more. One, I could travel without knowing the local language or Hindi. Two, I could survive on rice and curd and idly for 10 days and still enjoy my travel. It also threw a couple of surprises - the local bus travel without understanding anything but just buying a ticket to the destination, trying hard to get curd rice which did not contain onion, chillies or mustard seasoning.

Come March, while people were yet to start washing their hands and maintaining social distance, I had a trailer about 10 days before lock down. I contracted the famed “madras eye” or conjunctivitis of the eye, and for a week was washing my hands at least 20 times, and staying away from family. When the lock down was announced and the washing and distancing was mandated, i felt it was more an extension of my previous 10 days. While the early days of lockdown didn’t affect me much, unfortunately, my ulcerative colitis found a good time for flare up. Between mid-may and end-June, things were pretty horrible - my health was not so good, unfortunately none of my doctors were available, therefore no medicinal assistance to treat me. I was just running blind. This was the time, my belief in “karma” strengthened and I just took things one day at a time. Post July, with weekly consultations health improved and by end July I was almost my usual self, the only downside was losing a few kilos of weight.

The year had a couple of more health scares, including testing positive for corona, and forced into isolation for 17 days, plus more medication. As they say, “this too shall pass”, was true. The isolation was a blessing in disguise. I saw many movies that were in pipeline. It also gave me time to think on what next. As the year progressed, a voluntary decision to get off network - no facebook, 2 hours of internet time, no phone calls and many more restrictions helped me a lot. I thought a lot on the past, present and future. Introspection and Reflection makes a person to improve self. I used this period to plan for future as well as to write a a fair number of personal “thank you” notes to people who made an impact on my life. 

Finally, as the new year begins, what did I learn from 2020:

1. Believe in “this too shall pass”, whenever you face difficult situations
2. Be grateful for all the good things that you have in life
3. Once in a while, try to get out of “comfort zone”, as someone sad ‘ Life begins at the end of your comfort zone’
4. Help others, especially people who are less fortunate than you.

The last 6 week also helped me to prepare a plan for myself. More on that later.

Wishing all readers a happy, prosperous, safe and healthy new year.

Reading: Is a window to an exciting world

Reading, according to me is a window to a new and an exciting world. During my school and college days, and even early part of my corporate life, I read more for pleasure, than to gain something useful. One incident flipped this thinking, in my fledgling IT career. By fate, I became an ERP consultant. I was neither aware of what a consultant should do, nor have any prior experience outside of IT world. This incident happened almost 2 years into my career. We had a product demonstration to the client. I was all dressed up, including a tie, standing in front of the client in a large conference room, talking about the product features.

An hour into the presentation, as I was explaining a key feature, and saying why it was important, I was stopped. The client CFO then started explaining that his industry didn’t work that way and he needed the feature to be customized. I was like a “deer caught in the headlights “. I did not know how his industry worked. I was not experienced enough to talk about customizing the product. Thankfully, a senior person pitched in stated, that we can discuss this in detail once we start the project. 

During the break, another person from the client team casually stated that I need some industry experience. That was a turning point for me. I knew that I cannot go out of IT and gain industry experience. Also, there is no end to it. Tomorrow another person from another industry would comment that I did not know their industry. I started to think what could be the way out. The solution was “ to read “. I started reading books about various industry. The first few books I read were about basics of finances - profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flows etc. During the same time, I got interested in investing in the stock market. This incentivized me to read more. How to read and understand a company’s finances, understand their business and therefore make my investment decisions. I started to read about the companies, their business to be comfortable to invest in the stock. Sometimes, I would talk to people in that industry to gain a better understanding. 

Over the next 15 years in my career, I read a lot of books. On an average about 20 books a year.. This did not include the books I read for pleasure - the fiction, comics, etc. These books were business books, biographies or autobiographies of successful business leaders. I became a “ Forrest Gump” for reading. 

As I matured, I started to read books about failed businesses or leaders. Every book I read, every new and important piece of information was stored in memory. Some of them I tried to put into practice. Others were stored for a rainy day. Over a period of time, this habit broadened to reading a wide variety of things and storing for future use. Every time I started a new project in a new domain, I read the fundamentals of the how the industry worked. I started reading and learning about the nuances of that particular industry. Over a period of time, this helped me to gain respect from most of the clients that I worked with and sometimes even from my peers.

An interesting incident to finish this post. During a conversation for planning an offsite event, our leadership team was discussing on the travel, how we could not get train tickets, and how travel by road was difficult, I suggested that there is an option to hire an entire coach and attach it to the train, but it needed advance permissions from railway authorities. People did not believe it initially, but found that there was a provision. My reading helped that day.

Keep reading...

I will continue to write about reading, some of the books that influenced me personally, that helped me at work, etc, in the coming days.

Reading: a peep into a new world for me

A very long time ago, about 4 decades, may be a bit more, I got hold of my first book. A bit worn down copy of  Amar Chitra Katha (ACK). Worn down, because every other cousin and my brother had read it at least twice, before handing it to me, the youngest at about 5-6 years old. I was fascinated by the pictures more, than by the story. A few months later, the eagerly awaited first issue of aTinkle came home. Over the next few years, ACK and Tinkle were mainstays, with the likes chandamama, champak getting added to this list. Slowly, Tintin and Snoopy came into my world. As I grew older, Enid Blyton fillled my summers, vacations and weekends. Then Hardy Boys.

During my pre-teens and early teenage years, books were a form of entertainment. Sometimes, they were an escape into a fantasy land. A time came when sports occupied a major portion of outside school hour. Despite that, books continued to have a special place. 

I was fortunate, as some say, to be born in a family of people who valued reading. My paternal grandfather was a writer, and my maternal grandfather used to read 2 newspapers including a business paper every day even in his late 70s. But the biggest driver was my father. He was a voracious reader, and when I was in high school, my elder brother was running at a pretty fast pace along with my father. May be it was in the genes, may be the environment was conducive or may be it was peer pressure, or plain luck / fate, I got into a regular habit of reading. 

Over the years, what started with reading fiction, slowly expanded into non-fiction. It wasn’t until after I finished my college, my scope expanded into serious reading our epics. Seveal events led me to discover our epics and scriptures - mainly the Ramayanam, the Mahabharatham, and the Bhagavad Gita. This phase  in my life, made me realize a lot of things. It gave some meaning to what I thought was life then. It pointed me in a direction which I felt was the right one. 

As I got into corporate world, the business books entered my reading area. I used to read a lot of business books trying to understand and make sense of understanding business, the various domains, some great leaders and companies.

My 20s were probably the best time in life with my books. This was the time that I realized that Books were the window to the world. More importantly, to choose the right set of books, to get a proper understanding of the world. As they say, travel gives you the best experience in life. Reading gives you the next best, without the same effort, time or cost. Thankfully, my choice of books were good, and therefore my journey was fruitful. My biggest learning by the time I reached my 30s was this - to read, daily. Without fail. Because, reading gives you the knowledge of things that you may not experience in life. 

Remember, Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is power. 

More on reading in the following posts including how reading changed my life, how it helped me get ahead of competition in my corporate world, and may be a list of books that made a big impact on me.

Keep reading...

Birthdays: A time to take stock

During my college years, every festival and my birthday every year was a big event for me. While Deepavali and Pongal were big celebrations, my birthdays were special. I used to receive close to 50 birthday cards every year, from family and friends (Yes, there was this concept of giving a card).

As years progressed, life started to change. During my initial career, birthdays were still big. Colleagues used to celebrate it at office with a cake cutting, a dinner party that day or lunch during the weekend was mandatory. The festivals continued to be a big favourite, as I would travel back home for the celebrations. 

The first casualty was the birthday. As I grew older, stopped celebrating them. Then the email / egreeting picked up causing the end of the “ birthday card” culture. The next was the festivals. By early 30s, I stopped celebrating festivals and birthdays. I felt these were not worth celebrating. 

A few years later. These occasions became “just another day”. I even stopped buying / wearing new dresses, a mandatory event, for festivals. I even stopped exchanging the mechanical celebratory messages. Only, the special meal at home would continue. 

After all these years, I started to think that there might be a purpose to the birthday. Every new year, we all make new resolutions - become fit, / healthy, lose weight, read more, learn something new, so on and so forth. At the start of every financial year, we start planning for our tax savings, investments etc. 

So, may be, birthdays are a good day, to take stock. A stock taking day or event - for our karma. When I mean karma, I don’t mean the so called “punyam” or “paavam” as prescribed in our religious texts but of our good deeds and misgivings as per our conscience. Every birthday, can be a time for reflection of what good things that we did in the last year. What can we do better? Where did we slip, and can we correct it this year? Can we become a better person, understand better the purpose we are here and take a step towards realizing that? The purpose can be to  realize God or Godliness in yourself. It can be to realize how you can be a benefit to the society at large, which has helped you or to find personal happiness in what you do. It depends on whether you are a theist or an atheist or agnostic. 

So, over the last several years, i have been using this period, my birthday time, to take stock of my karma. I make it a point to start my birthday every year by doing something good. It can be a monetary donation to someone who needs it or till a few years ago, i used to donate blood on my birthday, etc. Something which starts me on the right note. 

So, do your stock taking on your birthdays. Re-focus on your life. 

Life is beautiful. 

Travel, to Experience Life

In an earlier post, I talked a bit about why you should travel. Let me go into details of the why, including sharing some of my travel experiences.

Travel is a way to Experience Life - Life beyond our normal routine, life beyond your homes, beyond the usual people you meet. Initially, I thought why do i need this experience; I don’t need it. But as I grew older I realized travel makes you wiser. Gives you the experience to handle life better.

My initial travel were all related to going to temples in various parts of Tamil Nadu. This was my main interest those days. I visited over 80 temples across various parts of the state. Sometimes, packing over a dozen temples in a weekend. My initial travel were all dictated by my work schedule. My mother, who used to accompany me, as she was interested in visiting temples, was the guinea ping in all these experiments. We had travelled by trains, buses, local taxis and autos, sometimes hoping from one temple to another or one town to another.

Some of our experiences:

During a 2-day trip to temples around kumbakonam, I noted the return bus departure time wrongly. My mother and I left the hotel and walked towards the bus stand. I told her we had 30 minutes and can walk the 10 minute distance. On the way, she wanted to pick up some magazines to read in the bus. We took a short detour, and as we were picking the magazines, the travels guy called me and said the bus was ready to depart. I begged him to wait for 10 minutes, paid for the magazines and with 2 bags and mom, rushed towards the bus stand. After 5 minutes, I called the agent and asked for the status. He said the bus had left. We were walking and suddenly I found a bus with destination chennai from the same private operator. I stopped the bus and after giving my name to the conductor asked him it was the same bus that we missed. After getting an earful from him, we got onto the bus. He came again after 10 minutes and told me “ Sir, you should be more careful traveling with an elderly person, so that you don’t rush them”.

Most of the temples that we went in that phase were usually off the usual path. Some were in small towns, others off-beat. During those 2 years, inevitably, every temple we visited around breakfast or lunch time, we were always provided with something to eat by the priest. I used to tell my mother that this was really something divine. We got good food, without fail, and more importantly, without our asking. This only strengthened My faith.

Such experiences make you better. In the first instance, after that, i always double checked my departure times. Always. In the second, reiterated by beliefs. Every similar experience taught me something.

Travel brings in such experiences to you. It will enrich your life. Go on. Pack our bags. Open your minds.

Why should you travel?

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Leaving that aside, why should you travel is a question that keeps coming to me every now and then? To me, there are multiple answers:

I travel because

- i like to see new places

- i love to go to temples both for the spiritual experience as well as for the history and architecture 

- i love hill stations. There is something that the mountains bring to me. May be it’s being away from the crowds, the weather, the early morning mist with a hot coffee.

- i love to travel on rural buses, relatively less crowded, a window seat, ilaiyaraja songs in the air - all this leading to a wonderful romance - loving life.

The list goes on and on.

But why should you travel? 

- Travel gives you the experience that you will never get if you stay a your home. 

- It will broaden your horizon. 

- It will teach you life. 

- It will make you understand people. 

- It will give you self-belief. 

- It will get you out of your comfort zone. 

- It will educate you with different cultures, traditions, people and more importantly the history of your country. 

- It will show you who you are. You will start living.

If you are single, make it a point to travel solo at least twice a year. A short trip (2-5 days) and a longer trip (2 weeks). 

If you are married, do a solo trip once a year. 

I plan to write more on traveling in the coming days. Keep reading. Send in your comments.

Stop Existing. Start Living. Travel.

Living in the Moment

My Last post on living in the moment made me think further. So this post, is a continuation of that.

As I said earlier, my thoughts keep fluctuating between past glories / troubles and future worries. It was difficult not to do this. Despite reading / listening to Gita, Bhagavadam etc., where the discourses always emphasised on living in the present, I could not do so. So, my thoughts went into a loop - am I not capable of living  in the present or whats preventing me from doing so. I could see there were times when I was completely not bothered about yesterday or tomorrow and living at the moment. Other times, I was clearly thinking what I would do tomorrow, next month, next year (what a fallacy, knowing fully well that I will not know if I will wake up after a night's sleep). 

But over a period of time, i noticed there were clearly periods of time i was completely living in the moment. I started analysing when this was happening. I could clearly see when I was either running, or cycling or in my gym, I was not thinking of anything else. 

Especially when I was on the road, running or cycling, I was not thinking of anything else. The mind is either blank, or clearly focussed on the activity. No other thoughts. Not even what i would do once i reach home in say 30 minutes. Here, I was clearly not even thinking of the next moment. So why was it and how was it possible. 

The analysis lead to two factors: one - a passionate activity and two physical / mental exertion. When I was passionate about the activity, my thoughts were all about the activity. How fast was i running, what was my timing, how long can i run etc. Similarly during cycling. Also, a physical / mental exertion made me focus on the moment - concentrating on my breathing, being hydrated, or racking my mind for a solution for the problem in hand. 

When I look back, the same was the case when I was working in the corporate world. I used to take it one day at a time, despite having plans for short / medium / long terms, by and large it was always for the day.

I finally found that when you are involved in something which is interesting or passionate, you don't think of the rest of the world or time but just focussed on that activity. 

Perhaps, this is what we need to day in day out. Stay focussed on life. Live for the moment, and yes, it is difficult. 

... And Life goes on

It's been a year since I wrote my last blog post. It was about my friend Ashish Chawla, after he passed away in an untimely manner.

For sometime now, I have been thinking to restart my blog. So here goes.

When I heard that Ashish had passed away, I was shocked. Just 2 weeks prior to that, we had a chat and despite being in hospital, he was still cheerful. I was kind of disturbed for the initial few days. I wanted to do something in his memory. But somehow, things did not work and my initial drive slowed down.

Yes, even death meets its death at the hands of time.

Sometimes time is the healer, other times it is the killer. It makes us forget the difficult times in our lives, so that we can move on. It makes us forget our mistakes, and enables us to repeat them. Yes, the passage of time is both good and bad, depending on our circumstance. This is the best thing, it allows us to lead our lives, move on.

During the last few years, I have had a lot of time on my hands - to think, introspect and judge myself and my acts. Sometimes the result was good and I was happy that I did something good. Sometimes, I used to think that I could have done better. I also had thought of the future - the plans. I would plan for a travel, for getting back my fitness, running a marathon, visit temples. Some materialised, others remained as plans. 

But one of the things that kept coming back at me, despite me thinking of past or future is that why I am not able to live in the present. Why can't I take things as they come on that day. Live in the moment. Is it the fear of the future or of the comforting past? What makes me go back and forth in time. Why can't I be here, now. When I think of some of the teachings of our great philosophers, I keep going to the most important thing that they have said - be in the present. 

We are defined by our thoughts which translates into action. So, being in the present, a mind aware of what's happening now, gives us the best opportunity to take appropriate actions. Living for today, enjoying the small pleasures of life, understanding that problems will not remain as is, is what I think is the best way. For Life goes on, year by year, day by day and minute by minute. 

You can't stop as life goes on.

Good Bye, Dear Friend

For a change, my blog title " raghuonthemove " does not reflect reality. For a change, raghu is stunned and still..

A good friend of mine, Ashish Chawla left us a few days back. An untimely death took away a good human being.

I first met Ashish in 2006 May, when i joined Accenture as an Associate Manager. He was a senior developer. In the first week of joining, we had a crisis. Ashish and I sat together for 2 days and nights to sort out it. During the entire fire fighting duration, he was calm, always smiling. Telling me not to worry and we will deliver. This was an early crisis in my new job and I wanted to prove that I can handle this. During that two days he kept insisting that we will deliver on time every time we hit a roadblock. Here was a guy who was very calm, composed under pressure. Something I learnt from him. 

We went through a lot of crisis over the next few years. I used to go to him whenever there was something big, knowing fully well he can solve it and bail me out of the situation. Despite crisis, he was always smiling. Always calm. 

Another aspect that impressed me was his ability to mentor youngsters. As a new team, we had a lot of youngsters (i used to call them my kids, sometimes even now), who were new to professional life, new to technology and had lot of doubts on how to approach things. He was always there for them. I used to tell him that he needs to guide these youngsters. He was always helpful, always there for these people. There were lot of times when I found him helping youngsters during the day, and staying pretty late in the night to complete his work. Here was a wonderful person ready to help others despite his own deliverables, problems & issues at work. This is something i learnt from him. To be there for people when they asked for my time.

He was a person who was never satisfied with doing work. It has to be done to perfection. I read somewhere that you should aim for perfection so that you reach excellence. But Ashish was one person who was not satisfied with excellence, he needed perfection. Perfection in everything he did.

After I moved out of accenture, i lost in touch with a lot of my team members, colleagues and Ashish was one among that group. But fortunately for me we got back in touch with me. He was going through health issues at that time but despite that he was always cheerful. I have called him a number of times when he was in hospital to inquire his health, and his response would always be a cheerful " I am fine, recovering" and more importantly a more cheerful " how are you doing" would follow.

We have been in touch almost every other week until last week of May 2017 when he was in one more of his numerous hospital visits and told me he will get discharged in a 3-4days.

Every time we spoke in the last couple of years, he always used ask me to come to his hometown, Dehradun to visit him and spend time there. Every time he would tell me, " I will take you to Mussoorie and we will go in my bike "".... I used to repeat the same thing, that I will come in 2018.

Some day, my friend, Some day, I will definitely make a trip to Dehradun. Not to see the town, but as a homage to you. May be, I will even make a trip to Mussoorie as per your request.

Until then, good bye.

God Bless you, Sachin

I still remember the 82 Sachin made as a opener. The match was played in New Zealand and when I woke up early, it was announced that Sidhu was out of the match with the injury. New Zealand did not make a big score on a that pitch helped the swing bowlers a lot. At the break, I was thinking that if we lose early wickets, we are in for yet another typical Indian batting in NZ. 

Come Sachin as an opener for the first time. Boy, that was probably the best thing to happen for Indian cricket in a long time then (or was it for mankind since sliced bread). Before you could think what next, Sachin was blazing. Anyone who came to bowl, was in trouble. The fielders did not have to move, and the bowlers had no clue. A well set Sachin was in for a blazing century but fell short of it, and if i remember correctly, a pretty soft dismissal. 

I am sure that many people watching that match felt that here was an opener who will change the game for sometime to come. In fact, I hoped to see more injuries for other openers, so that Sachin can become a permanant fixture at the top.

A few years down the line, the desert storm happened. No one in their right minds would have given India a chance to the reach finals. Fortunately, Sachin that day did not belong to the group with "right mind" and blasted a beautiful century, the sand storm break doing little to break his momentum. That day, one witnessed two storms - the sand storm and the bat storm. He repeated the feat in the finals to win the cup for India. 

Many dreams followed, keeping people like me entertained, cheering for India, switching off the tv after he got out, marvelling at his bowling (sometimes frustrated that he was not bowling enough), despair at his captaincy and tenacity at keeping himself fit at his age to play 5 days of cricket.

It was not an easy journey for a fan like me. There were times when it pained to see Sachin dismissed by lesser bowlers or getting bowled repeatedly. It was frustrating to see him getting out to bowlers who he would dismissed with nonchalance at his peak. I truly felt that he should retire, rather than being reduced to a mortal by the bowlers on the field.. It was past his time,  may be, i thought.

For over 20 years he brought cheer to fans like me, despite several big and small issues in the country and in our respective lives. He made us forget all that for some time. For all the achievements, what made him stand out was his humility. The mark of a truly great man. God Bless you, Sachin.

Autorickshaws and Chennai - Part 2

A few years back I wrote a post on the autorickshaws in chennai. With the recent rule of mandatory usage of meters, and after a few interesting experiences, thought would jot them down.

With a lot of fanfare and probably a bit of fear of the court censure, the government revised the autorickshaw fares and made the meters to be mandatory. For about a month, drivers could use the old meters with a rate card giving the equivalent fare and they were supposed to have the calibrated meter by 15th Sep.

Was everything going smooth? I had my own doubts.

My first confirmation that things might not change came from a regular driver that I used to go with. I told him that he cannot bargain anymore and had to use the meter, the reply - " saar meter illama than ottuvom, athu eppadi enga ellarukkum theriyum " (we will ply without meters, and we know how to get around the system).

After about 2 weeks of announcement, I had to take the auto for a coupe of rides. With the first guy, the usual bargaining happened and when I asked about the meter, he said he was yet to get the rate card. :(. He also said, " saar neenga ellam meter ketta, naanga enga saar porathu (if people like you ask for meter, how can guys like us survive).

The second ride also was without meter, and this guy said the battery was down in the meter. I was in a hurry, he said no meter, and I had no other option but to bargain :(

In the meanwhile, my mother had both experiences - the usual bargaining once, and surprisingly the return journey the guy straightaway put the meter and the fare was about 60% of the usual bargained fare. 

Sometime ago, before the fare was announced by government, my brother had the opportunity to go in " Namma Auto ", a privately owned service wherein the auto not only had a proper meter, it was also cheaper than what is announced now. The best thing was that he was given a electronically generated bill at the end of the ride. :)

So, will chennai change.. I guess but it will change slowly. A lot of people have to wake up to using meters.

Being open to surprises during travel

During my recent travels, I encountered a few surprises, some very pleasant and others not so.

After my day's stay at nagapattinam, I moved out of the lodge to go to the bus stand with thoughts of either going to Thiruvarur and from there onto visit divyadesams on the thiruvarur - kumbakonam route or visit Mannargudi Rajagopalaswami temple.

I came out of the lodge and started walking in the direction of the bus stand in the hope of getting a share auto for the trip of about 2 kms. I asked a guy riding a bike if I can get a share auto to bus stand. He seemed to be pretty young (probably was not old enough to get a license), with a big can to get diesel. He replied stating I will not get share autos so early in the day (it was around 6.30 am). After travelling 20 metres or so, the guy turned and came back to me and said, " sir naan bus stand pakkathula than poren, ennado vaanga, anga erakki vittuduren". ( I am going near the bus stand and I will drop you there). I was bit afraid since he looked like a kid, but he insisted. He dropped me safely near the bus stand. 

In kumbakonam, when I checked in a lodge, the manager showed me the tarriff card and said these are the rates. He then added, since we just opened a couple of days ago, some of the facilities are yet to be done and he will give me a discount. I was bit surprised by this as generally these are not told upfront and you have to haggle later, after a few complaints. Later in the evening, when I came down to the reception from the first floor to get some drinking water, the owner, an elderly gentleman was there with his son (about 35 years old). He asked me about the room the stay etc, and they said that I could have just called the reception to get water. He then asked his son to fill water from the filter in my bottle and asked his son to go up to my room and give it there. 

I was fortunate to have an unexpected and lovely visit to Thiru Mandangudi (Thondarapodi azhwa's birthplace). I was traveling to Thiru Pullaboothankudi by auto and saw a board indicating mandangudi. The auto driver to my query responded that the temple is about 1 km out of our way. I went there after bargaining for a total fare of 80 Rs. The big surprise at the temple was the bhattar (priest) gave me a big leaf with curd rice prasadam offered to the Lord and asked me to have it there and then proceed. Lovely prasadam, with no expectation in return.

When i got down at pullaboothankudi and gave the driver 100 note. He simple pocketed and said it covered the fare. Autodrivers, will be the same everywhere i guess...

Besant Nagar Beach - my Bodhi Tree

Besant Nagar beach has always and will always be a place that I go, when I want to be alone,  or I need to take a step back from my daily life. 

This is one place where you can view life in full - you can see old couples walking together, young family with the kids playing in the sand with a ball, group of young guys in the water having fun, couples some sitting bravely in the open others crouching in the dark behind an empty stall, groups of college / young office goers with a frisbee / volleyball / foot ball sweating it out and many more such scenes.

But to me, the beach experience is divided into 3 categories - the walks as part of my excercise regime (cutting myself from the outer world with ilayaraja on the earphones), the chat sessions with one of the very few friends with whom I regularly share the beach and every topic under the sun, and finally my long visits at the waterline with Velukudi Krishan (religious / spiritual discourse) and the vast ocean for company.

I have had some strong debates with friends, or silence alone. Sometimes i see a lot of scenes and feel happy or sad or whatever other emotions; at other times my mind is just blank concentrating on what I hear and contemplating on it, especially if it is a devotional discourse. At times, I am completely mesmerized by the beauty of the beach, the sun rise or the full moon. 

But every time I visit the beach, never do i fail to listen to Nizhalgal song especially ' pon maalai pozhuthu '.. and the as the line goes ' vaanam enakkoru bodhi maram, naalum ennakathu sethi tharum.. '

The vast ocean and the skies, never fail to make me happy. the vast emptiness - my bodhi tree.

Innocence Lost...

I spent a couple of hours at the besant nagar beach today, and most of the time near the waterline. During this time, i saw a lot of kids between the age of 3 and 7, liked their antics, their playfulness but most of all their innocence.

There were two father and son duos - the fathers in mid 30s and the sons around 4 years.  I watched this pair who were about 20 feet apart. In one pair, the son was very bold and brave. He kept pushing his father to go deeper into the water whereas the father was cautious in not venturing too far. The other pair, the son was very tentative. He was just getting his feet wet standing at the very edge of the water and whenever there was a big wave, he would rush back a few feet. I kept watching both these pairs and was very fascinated by the kids. The two kids were innocent and one in his innocence of danger wanted to go deeper into the water and the other in his own innocence of the safe hands he was in, did not venture beyond the water edge. After some time, i noticed a small plastic ball which was bobbing up and down in the water. The father of the brave kid also noticed and pointed to his son. In a short while, the ball came closer to the water's edge but a bit farther from where they were standing. The father & son ran to the spot and picked up the ball. At that point in time, the other kid noticed the ball and asked his father to get it for him. By then, the other pair had already picked it up.

The father of the brave kid noticed that the timid kid wanted the ball. He asked his kid if the ball can be given to the other the kid. Without a moment of hesitation, the kid told his father to give the ball. By now, the timid's kid father was saying not to ask and let the brave kid have it. But the brave kid, got the ball from his father and gave it to the other kid and gave a big smile. That was a fantastic moment.. of generosity built on the foundation of innocence.

I started to wonder when and where did we lose that innocence. All of us were like that when we were kids, and some us even until college when our friends were friends and not competitors. Innocence lost, by choice or by design.