Spread Love !

Qn: Whats the secret of happiness ?

Ans: Loving without condition, talking without intention, giving without reason, caring without expectation - That’s the real secret of success and happiness; Dare to disagree ?

Sounds impractical, bookish, foolishly romantic and like a hallmark greeting card ? It does :) but it works.

Try following these for a month starting today

Overcome your short temper. People have this wrong notion of assuming short temper as “attitude”. This very quality is a source of most of the woes in a human life.

I sometimes wonder the connotation of the word “Attitude” which in the urban dictionary, is forced to mean arrogance and rudeness. Attitude is not about being rude and arrogant. It’s all about influencing others with your words, actions, gestures. Bring in that “attitude”.

If you are short tempered, there is something wrong with you, your attitude and your upbringing. Just understand that you are as normal as others and nobody deserves to bear the brunt of your ill behaviour, whatever mood you may be in, period !

Kill your conceit. For this, first of all understand the words ego, conceit, self indulgence, excessive self pride.

Understand that whatever you are is not because of what you think of yourself, but because of what World thinks about you. So stop thinking too high about yourself. Let the World do that for you.

Never get judgemental. Never ever try to judge anybody based on what you see / hear. Circumstances, situations, contexts differ from day to day and person to person. The way everybody reacts or responds is different. Accept everybody on their face value.

Censor negative suggestions. Well-wishers, friends, family, loved ones guide / suggest you throughout your life. Know what to accept and what not to. Never take negative suggestions too seriously.

If you are asked to avoid somebody, keep a tab on somebody, trouble somebody, play dirty politics, indulge in hatred – think twice. Notwithstanding the love or positive vibes you enjoy with the person, please take everything with a pinch of salt.

Learn to forgive. As many popular quotes say forgiving is the virtue of stronger breed. Revenge doesn’t help anybody. You might afflict the other party by hitting back, but that doesn’t heal your bruises. Forgive and shower love on everybody around.

Enough of Gyaan on what not to do. Something on what to do here:

Love: Parents, spouse, family, siblings, in-laws, cousins, friends, colleagues – These are the people who define you. Like them. Respect them. Love them. Its infectious !

Care: Show your loved ones that that you care for them. Help them, go to their rescue. Celebrate their happiness, feel their pain, lend a shoulder if they wanna cry. Make them feel comfortable and make them realize that you are always around the corner for them.

Express: Do you belong to the clan of people who don’t believing in expressing love? Do you feel expression is dramatic, melodramatic and filmy?

If you feel so, you are used to taking people around you for granted ! You assume that they understand your love and care. May be, they do. But are you not loosing anything gestures. Definitely not !

If you are not used to that, it’s never late. Try it once and see how better you feel ! Its addictive !

Be patient, stop complaining, halt scheming, avoid negative flow, go against the negative system. Be Human !

Try to observe a deeksha for 1 month or 15 days or atleast a week and see remarkable difference in your life ! Even if you don’t, you are not loosing anything either.

Contribute in making the world a better place to live. Spread Love !

PS: I know I can’t change the world by writing a few words here and I don’t expect the readers to follow all these immediately and change the World either. But if you read this looooong post and reached here, that means you gave a thought about this. Thanks for that.

And hope you have noted the change in the blog URL. Its not vibrant-serenity.blogspot anymore. Its being-chandu.blogpost.com

Love, Health and Power to all :)

Change !

Change is the only thing thats constant and here I'm with a change. A change in the blog URL.

Retaining the theme of vibrant serenity, I took the liberty of changing the blog title as http://being-chandu.blogspot.com . All those who are following my blog, please take note !

Love and Peace

Three Years of Marital Bliss

Three years back, when I chanted the mantras "dharmecha, ardhecha, kamecha, mokshecha…nathi charami" little did I know the meaning of those words. Like most of the grooms, I just repeated what Pandit told me.

For me wedding was just a celebration of marrying my girl friend of two years. I thought marriage was a happy climax of the "Love Story" and the concept of marriage as an institution always confused me.

It took me time to realize that marriage is not just about living with your beloved. Its caring, sharing, feeling, expressing, understanding, respecting and loving each other for the life time. Its all about holding to each other through thick and thin - Thats the gist of the holy hymn nathi charami and it took me 3 years to apprehend that in reality and now I'm in the process of enjoying our "Real Love Story". It is said that a happy guy marries the girl he loves; a happier guy loves the girl he marries. I'm the happiest guy :)

Loving and being loved are the best things in life, marrying and being with the loved one for life is eternal !

Spread love, express love, celebrate love - Secret of successful marriage :)

Most Memorable Birthday

Officially, technically.. and finally I've completed three decades of existence on this planet.I heard wise people saying that first 10 years pass off without our own knowledge, 10-20 in education, 20-30 in career and life starts after 30. But my pursuit of knowledge is still going on and career is not established in a right sense. Am i going slow ?

Notwithstanding I believe my life has just started and there is lot more to happen from now or may be thats the way ageing optimists look at life :)

Coming to the topic of discussion, my recent birthday (April 30, 2010) was a day to remember at least till my last day. I don't really enjoy celebrating my birthdays but ironically almost every time end up having a blast, thanks to people who love me and their gestures. But this time, am simply zipped, zapped, zoomed, overwhelmed left right and center.

While the routine exercise of cutting cake amidst balloons, music and screams was arranged as expected, my wifey handed me over a folded piece of paper wrapped in a satin ribbon and announced "Your time starts now".

I was taken aback and cursed stupid reality shows she watches day in and day out for inspiring her in conducting this treasure-hunt. The task was all about reaching the final place in the house after a series of papers containing clues placed at various spots. I had to run around pillar to post for another few minutes and finally ended up at projector in the family theater room. "Whats next" was my expression.

She simply switched on the projector and screen to show me a video of my 6 month old niece Tanya holding a placard which reads "Happy Birthday Mama, Love you Lots". That was such a pleasant moment indeed ! I was about to retire after that video, when the shocker came.

There were 20 odd videos sent by cousins and friends. Overwhelming ! Each video was played and I had no words. Everybody was so sweet and was talking so embarrassingly nice things about me. I didn't know how to react, how to express my happiness. That was a moment to experience !

I paused the video and curiously and anxiously asked my wife, whats going on and how did that happen. She spilled the beans that she contacted my cousins, friends, loved ones and acquaintances and out of them many were technically challenged and few faced resource constraints but have made it a point to show their love towards me in this way.

I would take this forum to thank each of them for their gesture to each one of them involved

I was so happy to see my cousins Arvind, Priya, Bharani, Prasad, Rajani, Prasad and their kids Srija, Sriya wishing me though they are not mouse potatoes like me.

Karthik along with his brother Deepak and sister Deepika played a skit acting like reporter, cameraman and newsreader respectively. Till date I haven't cared to stop by and talk to Deepak or Deepika but those kids were so sweet and caring enough. These gestures bring out some humility in me. Thanks and Love you buddies.

Cousins Santhosh and Bhargava were so innovative in their expression. Thoroughly enjoyed their acts / skits. Dear Cousin Sandhya too sent her message despite busy with her kid. I know how difficult it was to record and send across those files. I still donno how can anybody take so much pain and put so much effort to wish on somebody's birthday.

Look at this, Shravya and Abhishek dedicated their beautiful renditions and conveyed birthday wishes in their messages. Guys, am not talented as you and I can never reciprocate to your gestures except saying "Thanks for making me feel special" :)

My best friend Soumya sent her video message wishing me. Buddy, you've always been so sweet and to me and your message is something I can cherish forever. Lotsa love !

Ramakanth, my roomie during initial days in Canada and a sheet anchor during my transition from India to Canada managed to squeeze in some time on the day of arrival from India after his wedding to send me his video wishes. Ramakanth, am not surprised with your being so nice anymore as I'm used to that :) Thanks dude !

Friends cum students Amruta, Rajanya, Sindhoora pleasantly surprised me with their video. Real treat to watch. Thanks friends :)

Now the time to feel embarrassed and sorry !

Hema got in touch with those people who mean /meant a lot for me with whom I spent a lot of time and learnt about life, but sadly was not in touch with them lately with a very lame excuse of being busy.

My engineering best friends Shyam, Pavan, Ranjeeth, Kishore. The people themselves sent their messages after my ignoring them for long time. They scolded me and abused me in their videos, but I felt their love. Mama, if you see my orkut profile - about me section, I have written "I'm a bad friend" because I was thinking about you guys at that point. Without making it more melodramatic, just wanna convey you that am not myself without you guys. Will call you soon for the earful :)

MBA buddy Vaishnavee sent her video message along with her daughter Satvika. Vaishnavee you are always beautiful, but sorry to tell you that Satvika is much more beautiful than you. Thanks a lot for the wishes. Treasured :)

Another surprise, my secondary school mates Harsha and Darani and ex-colleague Angshumala sent their messages. Thanks guys for your messages and am really surprised to see that you guys still remember me. Recording a video for someone who hasn't been in touch from ages is really special and thanks again for that :)

And...coming to my own family,

Suma, my darling sis-in-law sent her dancing video dedicated to me. OMG. I never saw her dance and hence felt all the more thrilled. She's so graceful and gorgeous and it was very difficult to resist myself from playing it a dozen times immediately. I never felt so proud of my loved ones in the recent past. Love you Summy !

My dad-in-law recited a self written poetry blessing me and mom-in-law spoke very very nice things about me. Such gestures from in-laws always boost us kada :)

Li'l Tanya, and her parents, incidentally my sister and Jiju sent me individual videos wishing me and also made her half a dozen friends to wish me.

My wifey gifted me an iPhone which is a huge leap from a Nokia 6070 I've been using for the last three years. She somehow has this larger than life image of me and treats me with best available gifts. Remember last year, it was Mercedes Benz. But getting these video messages after communicating and coordinating with so many people for days together, consolidating them, hiding them from me, packing and presenting in style - remains the best ever gift from her.

Mom, Dad were happier than me seeing so many people wishing, singing, dancing, acting, reciting, performing for their son. And how can they get away without surprising me. They presented me Rayban shades as they saw me loosing my earlier sunglasses. Don't know how they managed to buy such expensive gift but didn't think much, they are parents after all, they can do anything for me. And coincidentally this is my first birthday I spent with parents and wife together.

So many people took so many pains in making me happy and smile for a minute. Do I need anything else, I wonder ! They just wanted to show how much they love and its a humble experience for me.

I treasure, cherish and relish those moments !