Identity Crisis - Who am I?

Who am I?

The identity crisis that I'm pondering over these days.

With these recent road rages related to the different language... And people's behavior towards non-State people is just so perplexing.

In our own country we fight among ourselves, First, in the name is religion - Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Chritian; Second, in the name is state/language - ODiya, KannaDika, Telugu, TamiL, Maharashtrian etc. 

Then inside state we would fight in the name of castes - Brahmin, KaraN, GouDa, SC, ST etc.

Inside each caste we would fight in the name of sub-castes - SoLakhanDiya GouDa, Gopa GouDa, Nanda GouDa etc.

In the root level we would fight in the name of gender.

Why do people adapt Hindi or English language to communicate?

In my childhood days, there were barely any English medium school. And it was a luxury to study in English medium school.

People wanted to dream high and reach out to the outer world which was propering faster because of the common laguages being spoken between countries. So, most would get their kids admission in English medium school. 

My siblings studied in English medium. I studied in Odia medium, state government school. 

I wrote, spoke and learnt everything in Odia till my 10th. I used to be terrified of English language and would feel feverish during the exams due the the fear of it. 11th was as if a lightning stroke on me. Everything was in English. It took me 11th grade completely to get adjusted with English and I was way behind my fellow students who were from English medium. 12th grade was finally a bit easy for by then my written English had improved.

Then Engineering was way better. However, my spoken English was still broken. And when the time for interviews came I was panicking. I have to speak the answers not write. It was a challenge. And I love challenges. So, yes, I had to work hard to be able to speak without fear. Practice, practice and practice... That's what I did. Finally clicked through the interviews and got my campus selection.

Fortunately and luckily we had a 3 months of Software Engieer Trainings, where we learnt various programming skills as well as communication skills. The trainers gave us tasks like News paper reading like an anchor, presentation skills, dining skills, listening to English radio channels, watching English movies without subtitles and rewind and repeat unless we understand the Americam accent.

I worked hard to be able to speak with customers, clients, colleagues from different countries. And yet, now I and the new generation kids are urged to learn all different state languages.

It's not like our days when we were surrounded by people from our own language. I never bothered to learn English, thinking I would be staying here in my state, why do I need to learn English. For me, life was Odisha, world was Odisha. Everything else didn't matter. However, as I grew and moved across few countries and many states in India, I realised that the common language that many respond to easily is Hindi and English. We were girls from Odisha, Karnataka, Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat, Banaras, Hyderabad staying together in a house, sharing our food, our songs, our movies, our cosmetics and were happy conversing in English and Hindi. Our goal was to be successful in our profession and raise the name of our family, our caste, our gender. We didn't think about state. We thought of our family name first, then the castes we belonged to. Being women we wanted to prove that we too are beauty with brains. And next thing that came to mind was keeping the pride of our nation when we were out of our country.

I haven't met so far any IT professional who cribs about prople not knowing their language. People who deal with foreigners, have been to other countries too, have seen the different cultures - try to inculcate their culture in their kids, they show by example, they do themselves first and not just command others to do. They are the ones who have seen the world and know the value of knowing the other languages well too. 

The ones who have not even been outside their own state keep their minds closed, conservative and orthdox.

Once, everyone (from other states) learns the other state language, these same people would find some other reason to complain, fight and harrass others like gender may be or not being born in their state.

May be one day the animals would also start speaking and start harrassing us humans for not being animals.

As humans what we should do is save the kids from having these Identity Crisis, for they learn English language so that they can communicate with all the different state people that they live with. How many languages will they learn? Already the education pressure is huge, much more than what we studied in our times. And becoming experts in multiple languages is just overloading them and is taking away their fun childhood. 

Keeping them interested to learn all the different languages is definitely a challenge, but telling them, "You are living in our state, using our resources, breathing our air, eating our food but not showing interest to learn our language" is not going to create any interest or love in them to learn the language. They would just revolt and want to finish study fast and do higher studies and get out of the country, to a place they can live freely, away from these politics. 

With what's happening in our country, we better not complain in other countries that they are showing racism towards Indians. You are showing racism in your own country, then you have no right to complain about it when others do it to you, to your relatives or to your kids. Open up your minds and find different approach to create love in the kids heart to learn all different languages. All these languages have a beauty, a poetic form, a musical way in their vocabularies. Use that to create interest, may be create RAP songs in your own language and make it popular, so kids want to learn to understand. Take example from BrodhaV - I love his all different songs inculcating the different South Indian languages, it's memorable because of his beautiful lyrics and music. 

Love is what can bring things closer to one's heart. 

Hatred would just repell all your efforts.

Well, to address "Who am I?", I want peace of mind, so, "I am a human" is my answer. And I love (and learn) all different languages of the entire world and their unique cultures. 

With Love

~ Smile

My Latest Passion - Novels!

I have been observing that I read a lot more Novels than I watch movie... I have finally understood the craziness one feels when they read a story than watching it on a screen. 

One explore so much about one's power of imagination, visualisation, seeing things through mind's eyes!! Oh! I love it. God's grace be on me and help me find time to manage my work, personal life and imaginary, in other words magical life. :)

Oh yes, the same kind of feeling I get when I listen an English song. I couldn't believe those English vocabulary has such power to create a beautiful song along with the variety of music instrument and the power of the singer's voice.

And oh yeah - I love my flipkart ebooks. So far the best ebook reading app that I have found. All other readers are just average ones, including the ones that the book publishers provide.

Have a wonderful day and keep smiling!!

♥ ~ Smile

Music - the vehicle to my personal world

Music... ..♫..♫..♫.. I am in Love... I am in Love... I am in Love...

I am in Love with Music... It's a companion that I am sure I am gonna have with me for my whole life... It's one partner that always leads me to my dreams... to my fantasies... to a world where there's is only Love and lovely people; no complexity, where the nature's so beautiful, not touched by any kind of polution at all...

Yeah... I know what you are thinking of now... you are thinking of the truth's of life, the realities of life... Don't worry about it... I spend most of my time in the reality... However, when I am fed up of it... I spend my time with my favourite songs and the music which takes me to the world that I always wanted to spend my life in. The people with whom I wish to spend my whole life with.

Music has the power to change your mood, your thoughts in seconds... Thank you all great music composers... who give such thought to every part of the tune, every music instrument, the rhythm of the notes that take us to the wonderful world which doesn't actually exists...

I love the music, where the voice of the singer is clearly visible and is playing on the front. Music when played in the back is most powerful and soothing. It directly hits your brain and calms it down. It slows your pace a bit and thus you becomes relaxed.

On the other hand music if played on the front, hits your sexual senses and you feel like dancing to a level of seduction. This is the reason why pubs play disco music. Yeah... if you want to enjoy the sexual part of life, go ahead and enjoy the pub life. Even if you don't smoke, the smoke of the cigarette that others enjoy, is going to reach each and every senses of your body. And the music increases the intensity to take to a level where you dance with those alluring steps.

Music can with in seconds make you cry and/or sad. It has power to remind you of any past events that haunt you with happy and/or bad moods. With in seconds it make you dance to its tune.

Right now I am listening some of my favourite songs, which includes serene, joyful, sad, sensual, trance, disco - old and new songs. If you would like to know at the very moment which song I am listening to, then yeah.. it's my all time favourite song from the movie LOVE - "Saathiya ye tune kya kiya, beliya ye tune kya kiya... Itni mohabbat sehna sakoonga, sach mano zinda rehna sakoonga...". I get nice sleep when I listen to this song at night. And yeah I am literally singing it now sitting at my office. At times I dance to the tune sitting on the chair.. Yeah its weird but can't help it... And again Que Sera, Sera ~ Whatever will be, will be - who cares. It's fun and helps me keep my singing skills in tact. At times the most rubbish lyrics also sounds pretty nice because of the voice, tune and music.. like Tamma Tamma Loge from the movie Thaanedaar. This too is my all time favourite, because of the music and the dance.

It make your day and cherish it to the fullest. If you feel you are sad... and your day is going to me doomed, then listen to your favourite song. You will be amazed how swiftly it brings you back from the sad to the joyful mood.

So, Que sera, sera, sera... just chill and enjoy your life just the way you want it to be...

♥ ~ Smile

Recipe for a Pure Environment [CC # 2]

Today we see pollution all around us. Dirty dark greasy pollution damages starting from our skin to our hair to our respiratory system etc. etc. etc. Our environment is really getting spoiled now.

I have a recipe to have a pure environment. However, its not about the one that is affecting just our external self. It affects our inner self too.

I am talking about the pollution, which surrounds us wherever we are, wherever we go. I am talking about the ill-feelings we have that cause inner pollution. Depression, Anger, Fear, Disgust – where are they generated from? They are not generated from our hands, legs, lungs, or respiratory tubes. These are generated from our thoughts.

One of the timeless truths of successful living can be stated as:

“Your thoughts form your world.”

To add more Earl Nightingale has rightly said, “You become what your mind thinks!”

What you focus on your life grows, what you think expands and what you dwell on determines your destiny. Life is a self fulfilling prophecy – it gives you just about what you expect from it. To add to it there’s a famous saying:

“Thoughts can make you,

                Thoughts can break you”.

So, given this principle the first step to become happier, a serene person is to manage your thoughts and purify your thinking.

I’ll provide you with 3 ingredients which would help you improve the quality of your personal environment.

Let me start with the first ingredient: It’s your Surrounding.

Our surroundings shape our moods, our thoughts and our dreams. Take a good, hard look at your surrounding because your thoughts are associated by the people you associate with, by the books you read, by the words you speak, by the food you intake and by your daily physical surroundings. I keep a flower or two in a vase next to my bed. That gives a fresh feeling; it helps me release my stress after the work hours.

Are you spending your time at work with negative people? Do your friends always speak to you that they are dissatisfied with their work life / married life? If so, they will eventually make you negative and cynical.

Are you watching violent TV shows or mindless videos at home? If so, your mind will grow restless and noisy.

Is the space you work in bright, colorful and inspiring? Over the coming weeks, I would suggest you to take steps to make the place you work and live in, a better one. You will quickly detect the improvements in the way you think, feel and act.

Now, the next ingredient is – Food.

The foods you consume affect your mood as well as clarity of your thinking. This is why the ancient sages ate light foods.

Just think, if you owned an expensive formula one race car, you would not think of fueling it with anything less than premium grade gas. Anything less would reduce its performance.

Then, why would you put anything less than the best food into your body which is even more valuable performance vehicle? Eating wrong foods in large quantity would reduce your energy level, affect your health and prevent your mind from serving you with its fullest. Every greasy lunch reduce your motivational level.

In order to boost your energy level and your mood is to getting into a habit of starting your day with a glass full of fresh juice.

“Jerry Maguire” – Tom Cruise in the character of Jerry Maguire is playing the role of a hard driving sports agent. And this scene is one of the memorable scenes where he has just signed up one of the hottest draft picks in football and as he drives away from the athlete’s home in a state of utter joy, impatiently searches from station to station in his car radio, for the kind of song he can turn up loud and sing along to the top of his lungs. Finally he finds it – Tom Patty’s hit “Free falling” and he begins to sing his heart out.

I hope you must have guessed it by now.

Yes, the third ingredient is – Music.

Now, do you remember those times when you heard just the right song at just the right moment? In those moments, you felt fully alive, full of energy and happiness; and all because a few chords strung together, in right sequence. Music can do that to you. It can lift your mood, put a smile back on your face and add immeasurably to your quality of life.

Get serious about listening to music that inspires you. Build a collection of your favorite pieces and play something that fills your heart with joy every single day of your week,

Now, I would suggest you to fuel your body with some fresh juice, your mind with some great music and some inspiring thoughts. These would help you to create a cheerful environment.

Now, I would leave you with a final thought,

“A first class environment is an investment and not an expense !!”

I hope you would relish my recipe. You can drop your comments, your feedback in the comment section. Would love to receive them. Would come up with more recipes very soon.

Catch you in my next blog...

♥ ~ Smile