With all my heart

"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart"

- "I will be found by you"

Lovely.

I have this little note stuck on my notice board. I find it extremely inspiring. Everytime I think of procastinating a to-do or discarding a work or giving up on someone, this little red note flashes inside my mind.

I have been coming across the concept of 'staying longer' a lot these days. A lot of endorsement for letting the game go on till you get what you want. Profound.

Seek, I will. With all my heart.

I Wont Give Up

I am on an energising morning roll the past three weeks. I wake up at 7 take a couple of energy pills with books, meditation and exercise. It made me feel new and vibrant. Helped me get on with the rest of the day. Three weeks of bliss.

All was well till today. I did not go to bed on time, and hence I refused to listen to my alarm at 7. I snoozed all the way till 8. I was going to push snooze one more time at 8.05 when I noticed my to-do list on the phone. The first one was 'I wont give up'. I did not understand how that came on my to-do list. I usually write down things which are due the next day, or things which I have to tell close friends. This did not make sense. It must be divine intervention I told myself.

Whatever it was, it sure woke me up. I skipped the energy pills, felt lost for sometime and got on with work. I bunked my classes after a long time. I couldnt concentrate on my assignment and ended up submitting some half-baked stuff.

It hit me.

A close friend was telling me about this song of Jason Mraz 'I wont give up'. I had written it down so I wouldnt forget. The song turned out to be a nice hear.

I realised what happened. I gave up for a short while and the day was almost ruined. I wont, not now! Back on track now. Oh and it surely must have been divine intervention :P

The song btw,

Meditation

I am reading 'The Monk who sold his ferrari' by Robin Sharma. Its a wonderful book. EVery sentence makes so much sense. He talks about things you can do to make your life productive. And he approaches them in a very spiritual way.

One of the ideas in the book is to meditate on a rose. Its called the 'Heart of a Rose technique'. You pick up a rose and concentrate on its every fold and texture. When other thoughts enter your head you slowly refuse them and bring your mind back to the rose. It improves concentration and gives you peace he claims.

I love the idea. I have tried my hand at meditation before. I concentrate on my breath and try to be aware of every stroke of air I take in. It used to be very calming early in the morning. I remember feeling very refreshed. I lost the discipline for it after a while. Its high time I went back to this. Ten minutes of calm is the challenge! Lets see how it goes.

Irony

A bunch of close friends and I set out last night to get some ice cream. We were talking about relationships and about how its always nice to have a fling. Someone to yap to. Someone to look forward to. Haha and we were talking about the ones that got away.

It got me thinking. What we were looking for was just someone to talk to. However when your mom tries to call you, you don't really want to spend hours telling her about your day. 

You dont ever want to talk to the person who wants to talk to you. The availability makes us take them for granted? And the unavailability seems to make it interesting maybe?

Irony haa. Why do we do this? All I can do right now is call mom though :)

In a Child's Innocence

It was a very short trip back home. Largely, because I tried to rebel against the system and made sure I had only those two weeks off. It was nice time. Love and food as usual. Some expected hassles. Some unexpected hassles. Road trips. One lovely day at grandparents place.

It was bonding time with dad. Much needed. Both of us packed and took a train to visit grandparents. We reached early in the morning and took a chilling auto ride at 5 in the morning. I miss those auto rides. Early in the morning, every summer/december it was the four of us, filling up one tiny auto to get to the family home. The packed feeling always assured me that we were there for each other. That it was always going to be this way. The four souls in one packet resting on each other.

Entering the familiar road and the brown pillared house comes to view. To see chittis(aunts) and chittappas(uncles) greeting us at the thinnai(veranda). It feels warm. And suddenly all the chill from the auto ride vanishes.

Grandparents are very old by now. Thatha(Grandfather) is 86 and Aaya(Grandmother) is 79. Aaya doesnt walk much and Thatha tries not to. The house has lost most of the vibrance these two used to hold up. Its visits like mine from their grandchildren, thats keeping them going now. It is clearly their last few years. I cant help but remember everything they have taught us. Every little attribute of theirs I possess. Every single advice thatha used to shower on us. Every meal aaya made and her unspoken lessons. I have made it a point to visit them whenever I can. Its all I can do for them. Just be around and assure them of my well-being.

Breakfast was perfect with (chitti's) world's best onion chutney. Idlis and Dosais. Sigh. (Reality of bread/fried rice flashes inside. Yuck) Lunch was (kutti) onion sambhar and selection of vegetable curries. Yummy homemade pickle. Its called family home for these reasons I guess. Its lovely, its perfect, its rare.

After lunch appa took me on a ride around town. I have not sat on a bike in a really long time. The breeze in my face is just enough to ride all my life as pillion. A little tour of the schools he studied in. The family home in town. The hospital where I was born. Amma's college. The market street. It was a gratifying 2 hours.

There is a little girl at home. Jashwanti. All of 3. She was my biggest entertainment for the rest of the evening. Attentive, smart, innocent, worry-less, loving, caring, happy and thin. She was everything I wanted to be. She was walking around with a pack of cards without knowing what they were. The bigger kids had cards so she also had one. Thats it. She dint need anymore reasoning. I decided to teach her to use them. We sat and split the cards into different shapes. She was just learning numbers. I would put out the cards and asked her to pick a specific number. She would obey and we went on for quite a while.

Another cousin joined us so we decided to teach her another game. A simple game we named Jackpot. You split the cards among the three of us. You turn the pack away from us and keep throwing the cards down into a common pile. Once you get same number as the previous card you take everything collected under. She grasped it in a jiffy. I was unlucky that day and my pile ended in less than 2 minutes. She was busy playing with the other cousin dint notice my expulsion from the game for a while. And then she did. She looked at me and said, 'Irru, ennaku innum cards vanthaune unnaku tharen' (Wait, I'll get more and cards and give you some). A person of her words. She scored a huge pile in the next round and gave me half of her pile. The innocence. The character.

I was amazed. I would have never done that. I am too self contained to do something like that. Even if its just a pack of cards. The thought would not even enter my head. And look at this kid. Thats why the world goes around. Thats why there is still some good in the world. Its innocence like this thats saving the face of the world in all its corruption.

I am humbled.

A year goes by(e)

What A year!

2011 was eventful in many ways. I went through major changes with people, places and life. Some have walked in with a lot of smiles. Some have walked out with memories. Some places took new meanings. Some others remain, retaining their magic. New lessons everyday. New thoughts, new emotions. Its been a wonderful ride so far.

Everyday I feel thankful for what I have, thankful for whose relationships I have been blessed with, thankful for the sun, thankful for the moon, thankful for the sky, thankful for the trees, thankful for the food, thankful for the joy. Thankful for everything so far. Thankful for everything that dint happen so far. It is best the way it is!

This year, I hope to learn more, to grow, to forge new ties, to make a change, to be.

By the end of 2012,

I would have attained the aatma of my civil engineering degree! (my own definition of it)
I would have completed 10 paintings!
I would have played a decent amount of tennis!
I would have said thankyou everyday!
I would have smiled more!
I would have let go more!

I will recollect all this and more on the 31st of next Dec :)

To love, laughter and life
To a wonderful year

Stripped Walls

Its a countdown to get home. 5 more days to inexhaustible unlimited supply of hugs and love.

I decided I would pack slowly without straining myself in one day as is practice. I started off with stripping my walls down. I had written earlier here about my room and all the love I derive from it. I was going feed off the living sources of love putting the memories to a spell of break. Today it was time to put those memories into a folder for a newer and more hopeful semester.

Careful tugging of the tape that held the photos to the wall, making sure little pieces of plaster dint come off. Pinching blue tack and securing the notes carrying life lessons. A bend this way, a bend that way to straighten the photos. Plucking of board pins holding movie tickets at GV, boarding pass of first flight to uni, amma's love note, solution to rubik's cube and other romances of everyday life.

Stripping was done. I put them inside my folder and cleared the balls of tape and tack.

One look around the room and it hit me. These tiny pieces of paper were coping a multitude of things for me. They bestowed images on me and polished up everything that was missing.

The room looked eerie. Like a place that had no life. The walls alone had supplied life for the room.

And then again, its funny. How in instances like this we pin our hopes on inanimate things, and in some others even animate people wont do.

The hippies

I am listening to The Dewarists.

They resemble the hippies to me. A bunch of talented professionals from various strata of the music world come together in Indian cities and create awesome mind blowing compositions. Its interesting how we can create beautiful things from disconnected worlds. A deep lesson if you ask me!

One of my favourite songs Maaya by Indian Ocean and Mohit Chauhan

Love

You only lose what you love - and you often love what you lose.

I read this on a friend's facebook. Very beautiful and very deep I thought. I am going to just speak for myself. I always seem to be running away from what I love. I probably took the old Tamil saying a tad too serious. 'Dushtanai kandaal dhoora vilaghu' (read 'When you see an enemy, stay away from him'). Enemy is analogical to a lot of things. Be it choosing my course, parents or boys. 

So, how do you draw the line between loving and losing? I havnt figured out the answer, but I'll be sure to tell you when I do. 

Resume writing!

Its the half year mark of third year at uni. Time to stop fooling around and get serious about life after uni. People keep popping the 'What are you going to do when you graduate?' question. To add on to the fire, almost all my close friends are going to be interning next semester.


All this made really nervous about what I should do next! So, I decided to take the first step of the journey. Make a clean resume!


I knew I could count on one person for that! He is a close friend who triples up as a mentor and family. I sent him my resume & CV and asked him to review it for me. That was the beginning of a wonderful learning experience! Every time I sent him a version he'd send it back to me with improvements. The fact that it was scanned and remarked on with a pencil somehow hammered the suggestions deep into my head. We went through a week of 10-12 cycles of review and in the end came out my resume. Something I am immensely proud of now! I also took the help of some other friends who helped me get different points of view. The effort and thought processing we put in made oodles of difference to the document.


In all it was a really interesting ride, with a lot of awing about the importance of having a clean resume.


Some learnings to remember -

1) Patience - I learnt the importance of waiting for things to shape-up. I am a very distracted person. It takes great love for work and motivation to keep myself at it. I always hurry thing up in the end. This time though, I waited for it. I learnt to go along with it and realize the wonderful journey/outcome. Also, from my friend. He was extremely patient with me that one week! With all the corporate relationships he is used to, I thought it was really encouraging when he waited for me to learn. Very grateful for that!

2) While 'too many cooks spoil the broth',  the master cook can always handle the broth taking all the suggestions of the other cooks - I have always been better at working by myself, doing my thing. This time though I worked with three other people! Initially I took every bit of advice and blindly changed things on the document. As the reviews increased though I learnt to negotiate. To decide which I wanted to change, which I dint. If I had done this all by myself, I know that it would have remained Dhanya_Resume_v1.pdf. This is actually my biggest learning I would say. I learnt the importance of discussion and team work, in a way. 

3) To each his own - Just like every person has a unique fingerprint, every person has a unique view/opinion on things. I could see how each one of us noticed various aspects of the document. How we saw the words. What the words meant to us. This was a very deep learning. Having such varied opinion on things, I wonder how we even manage to run things in the world this way. I guess thats where compromise comes in. 

4) Sweat on details - Every space, every comma, every dot, matters. An achievement may not seem big to me in relativity, while on the contrary it might be something big to someone else'e eyes. It is essential to analyze a detail from the hirer's point of view and to try judging their understanding.

5) Easy on the eye, faster to the head - Formatting anything and making it cohesive makes life so much better. Personally, I like to keep things ordered and clean. I realized its important to extend it to every inch of life! 

Now I am all set for the next step. 'Looking' phase. Fingers crossed on this one to make it to where I want to go!

Joy

Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good, things really are - Marianne Williamson

Funny thing - I

I had a VERY funny moment right now. Moments rather. I was in the shower. I tried to think of all questions on my mind that needed creative approach. I thought about things. Munched over ideas.

Somehow I landed at my parents anniversary. I was thinking about how they were going to celebrate their 25 years soon. Then I started counting from the marriage year to now. 23. Two more years to a grand party. Yay. Wait. that means I must be turning 21 soon. But I am not. I was turning 20 soon. At least thats what I thought.

What followed this exact thought was a frantic 5 minutes were I counted their anniversary over and over to check. Then counted my birthday another umpteen times.

The conclusion: I was 21. Yes, I was going to be 21 in another month. Somehow the world had conspired into making me thing I was going to be one year younger. Either I was being stupid or the entire world had been wrong. Well, the former couldn't be the case. I had counted SO MANY TIMES. I had to be right.

Me and a friend had been discussing our next 4-5 years of life and we had constantly referred to us being 20 now. How wrong we had been. To think of forwarding all those plans by one whole year. The conspiracy smelt of bad blood. The world could not have been so mean to us.

I freaked out some more (a lot more). Rushed out of the shower back to my room, to call some one. I pinged a close friend and he was busy. I dint know how to solve the crisis. Thankfully another close friend came online and I called her. I told her the whole story with all the jazz.

Well, guess what. It was 2011. Not 2012.

All the while, I had been keeping 2012 in my head for some weird reason and had counted everything up to it. Oh. Dear. God.

Save. Me.

PS: The past few days seem to be featuring a lot of comic episodes like this one. While I am losing my mind, why don't I record it along I thought. So this is Funny thing - I. Many more to come, I assure you.

Conquer Yourself

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell 

- Buddha

Thankyou Nithya!

Just skypeeeee

Ever wondered about how you can change a kid's life? All it takes is a skype conversation! Talk to these kids, tell them about your day, sing along, dance with them or even teach them how to make tea. They just need a spark of inspiration to make it big!

http://pudiyador.org/newsletters/PudiyadorTimes_Issue8.pdf

#3 - Application Letter

Dhanya Balasubramanian 

25, Prince George’s Park, 

Residence 6, 

Blk 30, #05-05 Room I, 

Singapore 118424 

HP: +65 905* ****

e-mail: dhanya91@gmail.com

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to apply for the Entry-Level Consultant position. I am a final year undergraduate civil engineering student from the National University of Singapore.

My initial impression of Oliver Wyman was from your website that spoke of the firm’s excellent work in Management and Financial Services Consulting. However at the recruitment talk I saw much more - able, passionate and driven people who enjoyed their job and were glad to be talking about it to a bunch of curious undergraduates. That and their speech about the culture and importance of meritocracy showed me that my principles were a suitable fit for Oliver Wyman. 

My internship at CDM Smith which gave me exposure to the fastpaced nature of consulting firms, got me interested in facilitating businesses to run smoothly. This will certainly help me in adapting to the culture of Oliver Wyman. Consulting requires strategizing and planning ahead when bringing an idea from conception to completion. I learnt how to do that when I led a team of 5 for an Infrastructure Design Project and won an ‘Outstanding Individual Award’ from the Faculty of Engineering, NUS for my performance. I was also the President of an NUS art club where I organized many successful student events. These experiences that have taught me to be a team player, a keen observer and listener, highlight my potential to be an apt candidate for a consultant position. 

I interview leaders from various walks of life who have inspiring stories to tell and blog about it every fortnight. What started with interviewing friends and family, became interviews with Richard Stallman and Bijan Sabet. It has grown over a year now and makes me believe in the power of passion as an essential ingredient for success. My training as a civil engineer has helped me hone my analytical thinking which I believe is essential for a consulting position. It also makes me look at the big picture while simultaneously taking note of the details. My analytical abilities are further evident from the fact that I scored 100% in ‘A level’ mathematics and qualified for the nationals of the Informatics Olympiad, India.

I believe that I am a candidate who has a passion for creativity, an eye for detail and an interest for learning. I hope you will review my application to discover that I am suitable and pertinent for this position.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Dhanya Balasubramanian

(Edited / 01 October 2012)

Change

I am drinking Milo.

From 'EW-I-cant-even-dream-of-drinking-that' 2 years back to 'ooOO-I-love-milo' right now. Same reaction for Yakult also :P

A lot of my observations these few weeks seem to be about change. It is all around me. I was just talking to a close friend about friendship. She is in a tiff with her friend of 5-6 years. And now she is just perplexed at how people change over such small circumstances. Some for good, some for a while. 

I am becoming aware of a ten million things that have changed in these two years. There is change about myself, about family, about friends and about the air. I seem to perceive everything in a new light every day. I am discovering new things about old issues. Accepting things I wouldn't have dreamt of accepting in the past. 

'Things dont change, we change'

PS: I also noticed how most of my posts are open-ended. I have realized now it works for me most. When I come back to it, I seem to ponder more on the same subject!

Midnight wish

A midnight wish, I was dreaming up
Things in my head, cooking up
One of those sentient thoughts
before going to bed
I wished lots
For rain and wind, ahead

Only to wake up
To a horse's gallop
Swishing of the wind
Pitter patter of the rain on the glass
Clatter of the louvres
Roaring of the thunder

Here I am trying to rhyme
Well past my bedtime
Sitting in the shadow
Thinking again of my midnight wish
Sitting by the window
Thoughts that dint vanish, Thoughts that need polish

Never regret anything..

..because at one point it was exactly what you wanted!

I love it. Whenever I think about choices I made and things I did, I tend to wonder if I should have done it. And especially when things go wrong after my choices I upset myself.

Not anymore. This has enlightened me enough. To make choices I 'want' to make. Everything else will fall into place. Or maybe not.

The upside is that I never have to wonder what 'could' have happened.


Will go to bed with a peaceful mind tonight! Clears up a lot of things :)

I am growing up

It was a huge realisation last night. A couple of dots in the past few days connected last night.

A Facebook friend of mine got married! Yes. She's as old as me, a schoolmate. And she's married! I was mind fucked (Pardon the language, but I dont think there is any other word to describe my state) for a few hours. I went on and on about it. I even called my mom up to share the news. I expected her to be appalled. Well, because I was. She laughed it off. And asked whats so surprising in that. I started gushing at her and asked her HOW in the world was it normal/ or even laughable. She said she got married when she was 20. In my opinion, that was 23 years back and that does NOT count. Anyway, she went on to reason that the girl probably finished her graduation and her parents also thought she should be married. That is not how things work for me. No WAY. Aren't you supposed to be working? Or if you dont want to work, travelling? Or I dont know, do something else. Surely not marrying! To top it all the guy looked very young (I am serious. When I say very I mean 'very') and they even went globetrotting for their honeymoon.

Couple of days back a friend was talking about her cousin getting married. Again, the protagonist of this story is aged 20. She also just decided to get married. Somehow, her being from another country justified the marriage for me. I did not know anything of their culture, tradition or societal norms. So maybe it was normal. We just moved on to lavish weddings and expensive gowns.

A friend of a friend was acting in some movie and I was looking up some details. It was a love story of sorts. But yet again the heroine is 20 :O

And yes thats when it hit me that I was growing up. I wasn't a school kid anymore. I wasn't small or tiny. I was a woman. Almost 20. And it is no surprise that girls my age were making huge life decisions by now. It wasn't about the culture. It was just about time for some people.

Yes. I have chosen to do other things at the same time. I want to get my undergraduate degree, a few years of work experience doing what I love, some money in my bank account and an independent single life before I get into all the family jazz. Thats just me. Some others have made other decisions. There was nothing appalling there. And I am telling myself (as mom put it) 'Dhanya It's quite normal'.

The old man at the park

There is a hill behind one of the university accommodations. Atop the hill is a park. Quite small. Couple of benches, variety of greenery and an excellent view.

My mother was visiting me and a cousin took her to this park, while they were waiting for me to finish class. Firstly, she was at awe at the entire country(city?), it being her first time in Singapore. She wondered how they managed to keep everything so neat, ordered and pretty. She did ofcourse make remarks on the artificial-ness of the affair. She awed at the people and their sincerity in the little exchanges she handled. 

They drove to the park in the evening. Around 4 o clock. It was quite empty. Except for just another vehicle. They did not even manage to find any people. While they were enjoying the view up there, my mother noticed a park cleaner. He was raking away, doing his job in singularity. Forget that it was a windy day and most of his work was recursive. 

When she recollected this observation I wondered. I wished I could be committed to my work EVERY single day no matter what the circumstances were. He must have found his drive. I am still looking for mine!