Thursday, February 26, 2009

Learning to appreciate what we have

We often crib about a number of things. I don't have this, don't like that, this thing is useless and so on.. Often we don't find the time to appreciate what we really have and what are our true assets. Those are just taken for granted.

We grumble about the quality of food and the hygiene at tea-board. However at the same place, there are children who are working, mistreated, often man-handled and they don't even get two square meals a day. We talk about various problems faced at IISc - quality of mess food etc etc. Yet we realize IISc's value and its ambience is missed only when we leave the place. We fight with loved ones over trivial issues. Only when we lose them, we realize their value and how much we miss them.

I have a strong belief that whenever one feels bad, depressed or upset about something; there is a way to feel better. Just look around with your eyes open, and you would definitely find someone else in a worse situation than yours. Looking at that person you might actually feel ashamed and appreciate that your problems are trivial compared to what the other person might be facing.

It might actually be a good idea to spend a minute daily to reflect upon what all we really have, what all God gave us and be thankful.


Food for thought:

This is a slight digression but is based on a conversation I had with a friend. The recent hullabaloo about lack of hot water in hostels is known to everybody (now the problem has been solved). I was one of the sufferers as well. Still, this is a slightly different view point.

One wonders that do we students really appreciate the amenities they are provided with. Do we really deserve any better!! Do people like us who may not have basic civic sense have a right to complain! There was an incident of someone in the hostel running his nose and throwing it on the washed shirt of a mess worker. Many of us put on music at loud volume in the middle of the night or any time for that matter without giving a care to whether other people might be disturbed. We jump queues, remove newspapers meant for everyone and take them to our rooms, and do all sorts of things that may not be correct. It just requires a little common sense to see that and to know where to draw the line. It is not that everyone belongs to this category, but still I wonder whether we deserve amenities like hot water if we can't be responsible for ourselves. A highly pessimistic view point, but if this is the case in a place like IISc, how can we expect people outside to behave better ...

Thursday, February 19, 2009

My previous articles

Since I have written only a meagre number of articles up to now, I can collect them, gloat over them like a child savouring the last bite of an ice cream :-) . The pdfs for all of them are attached. Each of these appeared in a previous Voices issue or bulletin or magazine.

bhOndOO goes to an IPL match (first appeared in another blog)
Choose your attitude
IISc as a subcity
The Unsung Heroes
The end of the beginning

Monday, February 16, 2009

The beginning

Hello

This is my first baby-step into the world of blogging. Embarrassed by my fellow Voiceians (Voices : a students group in IISc that I m a member of) and other people who seem to be at home in this world of blogging, I decided, in a (regrettable?) burst of enthusiasm, that I will join this world. No more, will I feel jealous of comments like "I read your latest post" !! It seems every aspiring writer worth his/her salt has a blog with a big following...

Well, in my opinion, there are three kinds of blogs. One - highly humorous and fictional, which garners the largest following. This blog by Rupesh is my favourite. Two - Entirely personal with inner thoughts and ambitions. Three - General thoughts which can be shared by everyone. These are some samples of blogs of type three by other Voiceians. Madhurima, Mukta, Maneesh.

Problem with type one is that I doubt that I have such a sense of humour. Problem with type two is I have rarely expressed my true feelings and so on to anyone, let alone publish them in a blog. So I have to fall back to type three. Of course all this is based on the assumption that my enthusiasm doesn't wane away after a couple of posts as seems to be the case with a lot of blogs. To be frank I almost gave up at the first step itself, finding a URL for my blog :-| , which proved to be rather tedious.

Well now that I have found an URL, let the journey begin :-).

-Arun