Soulmate

To begin with, at an abstraction layer, almost all of us have the same definition. But when we start to break the abstraction into clarity and try to find what lies beneath, we find no two human being have the same concept at a more granular level.It then means that even though everyone of us have a different unique definition of "soulmate", still we (probabilistically most of us) are able to find the right person and happily live ever after with him/her. But is it so simple? Are so many varieties of people living on the earth so that everyone is able to find the perfect match or do most of us pretend to be happy but we are not deep inside or does our definition of that abstract concept no longer hold true once we face the reality?

The process of building the image of one's ideal match starts from the teenage when it is still blurred and it gets a definite shape with more clarity as one grows up.And this process is controlled by many factors, primarily the family background that one belongs to, the society one lives in, the peer circle one is surrounded with and mostly the personality one develops. That's why i thought she must be someone with whom i must "connect" to, she should be aware of all the current affairs so that we never run out of discussion, she must be fluent in English so that i should never feel embarrassed of taking her to any place,she must be a working professional preferably in S/W industry more preferably in the same organization as that of mine so that we can make our on site trips together and so many other criteria, the list will go on and on.

These are I thought the bare minimum criteria one must have to be my soulmate. And standing today, I must admit I was all wrong. I was right till the abstraction, but no more when I tried to break the abstraction. I was right that we should always have something to discuss so that we don't feel bored in each other's presence, but that discussion need not only be centered around current affairs.I was right that I should be proud of her and never feel embarrassed because of her but i was wrong that speaking English is not the only way to make me feel proud.I was right that we should enjoy any trips we make together, but that need not be an on site trip and she does not need to be a S/W professional.
Today i never feel bored in her presence because of her enchanting personality to make any discussion interesting.Today i am proud of her because people appreciate her in spite of the fact that she is not fluent in English and my joy sees no bound when people call me lucky to have her in my life. Needless to say, i do connect to her, because our core values match, our ethics/principles do not contradict and our view towards life do not differ.

So, why is this big difference between what i thought what i wanted and what i now realize what i want. To me, the reason being we do not know what we want in life as a whole and therefore, we do not know whether what we think the best match for us is indeed the best match for us. And to make matter worse for us, we don't listen to our heart, for whom we are searching the mate, rather we try to get the best "deal" for us. And when the "deal" does not match up to our expectation, that is when we realize what we were actually looking for.

This is when one realizes the true meaning of "being loved". You realize nothing else but just the assurance of someone will be your side for the rest of your life, no matter what happens is the biggest deal you can ever sign on. When you hold her tight close to your heart as if you do not want to take a single breath being away from her and when she clings to you as if you are her last support if the world falls apart, is there a more divine feeling? It is said one's soul always remains sacrosanct, no matter if the brain becomes dysfunctional, the mind becomes corrupt. And we must free ourselves from all dilution while searching the mate for that sacred soul.

We will reach the destination....

The Turning point of my life

I have been thinking for quite some time as what should I write in my very first blog. Should it be something related to my profession, or rather should it be something personal to me. As a human being, I have always listened to my heart than to my brain whenever I am in double mind and I chose to follow the same protocol here, too. I have finally decided to write something which is very close to my heart, an incident which I consider to be the turning point of my life.

I was in 6th standard then. We were a family of four including my parents and my younger sister and living happily in our moderate house. My father was suddenly trasferred to Dhanbad for next 5 years, he would come to meet us but that may be once in a month or even lesser than that. We would not be seeing him everyday leaving for office in the morning and coming home in the evening. As a kid, I always stayed with my parents, so I was not sure how to react when I first heard this. And I did not realize the pain until the day my father left for Dhanbad.

In the afternoon, I was sitting in my study room, trying hard to concentrate on my studies but I was unable to do so. I was trying hard not to cry, at least in front of my mother, but mothers are from a different world. They understand everything, even if you don't tell them. She consoled me, tried to convince me that 5 years is not a big time and it would pass by just like that. And at the end she told me with firm voice "Don't cry...study hard and be a gentleman. People should not get an opportunity to point finger at me(to her) and say that I could not do your upbringing properly because your father was away from us". I could use her words within quotes as these words still keep mumbling in my ears.

That was it for me.I might not have understood everything she said at that time, but later when I came to my room and was going through those words again and again in my mind, I gradually came to realize what was actually meant. Of all the expectations she had from me, I was very clear on one thing from that day onwards that I should never let my parents down, be it whatever. Even today whenever I find my self at the cross road of good and bad, I try to remind me those words of her and follow the right path.

And as a student, I was mediocre. My target in the school exam used to be to be among the top 20-25. I never thought of being in that "Top 10" as I never thought myself that talented and I kind of accepted it. Life was going like this for me until the Durga puja came and we all went to Dhanbad to stay with my father for the next one month. As I had nothing to do, no friend to play with, nowhere to go, all my time which earlier was spent in activities other than studies, is now being spent only in studies and surprisingly I did not find studying to be boring , rather it was interesting ( I know lot of eyebrows would be raised, but this is fact). I used to go to a neighbour's house to see the cricket matches being played in Sharjah and Aquib javed did that infamous hat-trick, I remember I came home crying and never went to their house again. I think it was blessing in disguise, that I did not waste any more time in watching cricket and concentrated completely on my studies.

As a result, I was among the top ten (precisely 7th) in annual exam for 6th standard and I never looked back. Earlier my target used to be not to rank below 20-25, now it had become not less than 7th. As I grew and improved further, my target used to also climb with my progress. To many people it would be just "another" story, but to me that one month along with my mother's expectation from me changed everything around me. Had this not happened, I believe I could not come even closer to what I have achieved in my career. And being religious, I had begun to believe whatever GOD does for us, it is for our betterment only, however painful it looks temporarily. Even today, when I go through bad patch in life, I remind myself that my father used to cry so much in those days as he could not bear the unbearable pain of staying away from young kids, but he hardly knew that all his pain is actually making the future of his son. Who knows, may be if I was destined to reach where I am today, I might have reached here by some other means, had my father not been transferred, but I don't know what did not happen and what could have happened. I only know what has happened and that's why I consider this as the "turning point" of my life.