My best weekend in Delhi

It took 2 years for such an opportunity to come, where I could see myself writing something about what I have been doing here in Delhi. It took 2 years for me to find something worth doing which is worthy of a good write. It took 26 years for me to discover, how privileged I have been to have an opportunity to write it from the perspective of an observer and not from the pen of a protagonist.

Its inarguably my best weekend in Delhi..!!

As we generally do, I will get into some flashback so as to infuse some clarity on the development of these events. Me and a couple of colleagues from my office joined hands to work for the society and do something to the world which has given us so much. With this light on our minds, we started to explore opportunities to channel our energies into the realm of the unknown and discover the flame which could ignite the dull mind which had nothing in it except money and career.

Having a corporate background, we started of the conventional way, holding our group meetings and discussions about the things we could look at and the avenues where we can contribute. After penning down a few tens of them, we shortlisted 2 areas which we thought would provide us with an opportunity to form a proper symbiosis between our skill set and the social needs.

The first was providing equal opportunities to under privileged kids by initiating and implementing education and personality development programs for them. Second was working on green initiatives and promoting the awareness and implementation of them.

With these thoughts in mind, we started contacting people who would need them. We shortlisted a few orphanages, shelter homes, NGOs, government schools and juvenile centers. Once we started contacting them, we were surprised to see that most of them were pretty well established and that all they needed was support from volunteers. We could conclude that the essential reason for such an observation was right amongst us. Most of us always contribute in monetary terms for such initiatives but rarely does anyone of us decide to get in such activities as volunteers and thus most of these orphanages and NGOs had no shortage of funds but had a serious need for manpower and commitment.

After meeting with a few of such organisations, we finalized upon 2 organisations with whom we could create some synergies in terms of our goals and their needs. The first one was ADAA - Apni duniya, apna ashiyaana and Literacy India.

A tiny speck of dust...

This world contains millions of species and we are one of them but when it comes to humility, its something which we not just lack but have a severe deficiency of... That is probably the reason why our own species has always tried to grab all the available resources from every other species on earth.

As i saw through a truly amazing videohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnFMrNdj1yY&feature=player_embedded , there was one grounding experience from a very heavenly view. The earth is a tiny dot in our hugely vast galaxy and our galaxy is a mere piece of a humongous universe.

In this tiny dot, lives millions or rather billions of species and one of those millions is a human being and among those billions of humans, is a person called "I". This I experiences all the joys and the sorrows on this tiny speck of dust in universe and also tries hard to conquer and win it.

Heard a story during school days which said "that a fish which lives in the well, believes the well is the world" Aren't we humans doing the same and while we do this, don't we take pride in this illusion that we become the most supreme or powerful or important person in this world. We lead a life which is full of "Me" and this me hardly has any existence in this universe.

This "I" tries to fool the other "I" by showing his superiority through education, morals, money, power or wit and starts believing that he can achieve everything though in reality all he is doing is just fooling himself.

Shouldn't this "I" realize that he is highly insignificant part of a tiny speck of dust in the universe which seems even smaller than a pixel on a computer screen and humbly accept that he can never achieve supremacy. All he can do is grow and accept the fact that there are multitude of things which he doesn't know and its simply his thirst for its knowledge, that will help him quench his thirst for supremacy.

A reflection...

An evening on a weekend is finally an opportunity when we move away from the hustle and bustle of our life to give ourselves a glimpse of what relaxation and leisure means...!

A working life is similar in these ways to an engine which works hard making a lot of noise and expending a lot of energy on weekdays to finally get a moment of silence and relaxation on weekends. The engine finally gets an opportunity to relax its parts and give itself the necessary maintenance and oiling to once get back into motion.

As I was standing on the balcony on the 9th floor of my apartment, suddenly the city went pitch dark. The power failure had failed. The lights around me faded but there was a glimmer of illumination which came from a place far far away. Indeed miles away and that was the moon and the stars. But this illumination was enough for me to see my reflection on the glass of my window at the balcony. I could see my reflection very clearly in that glass and as I was examining it, the power came back. The lights of my apartment were back in action and suddenly I lost that reflection in the illumination of the light which came from inside my room.

The modern amenities of the world hardly leave a moment of truth and a moment to see your own reflection. We get so lost in them that we do not even realize that we lost viewing ourselves for years and its only when the "chashma" of these modern amenities and modern life is removed from our eyes that we manage to see ourselves...!

It is strange to see how our modern life is taking ourselves away from ourselves..!!!!

A closed door, or closed eyes??

This story goes back to a night when I was all alone in my 4 Bedroom flat in Gurgaon. It was around 11 PM at night and I wandered from one room to another without turning on the lights of the passage way...Pitch dark was the night with no trace of any moon light, it was only the memory of the house which was my guiding light..

I bothered not to turn on the lights as I was extremely confident that the image in my mind was very clear and I can steer my way to every corner of my flat with my eyes closed. As I walked through the passage, I reached the room and as I was walking into the room, I suddenly crashed against the door and the door which was closed got open. Luckily it was not latched but just closed, and so the opening of the door was not a very difficult task particularly because I was walking with so much confidence that my bumping into it was enough to get the door wide open...!!

As I tried to assimilate this experience, a parallel from life struck my mind. Life also has a lot of open doors and if you approach them with confidence and with your eyes closed towards them and open towards the target behind the doors, most of the times you end up opening the door... Most of the times, its the sight of the closed door which is enough of a demotivation and we end up not even giving it a perfect try..What if we close our eyes to the closed door and hit it head on to reach the target we want to achieve..?? Wont we stand a better chance ??

Isn't it good to keep our eyes closed when the door in front of us is closed??

Life near death

This was a poem which I wrote when I was in 10th standard. With the help and motivation of Karan Agarwal, I completed my first writing.


This is about a person who was in the titanic when the mishap occured. He was one of the survivors. In this poem, I have tried to portray his experience of struggle between life and death.

It goes this way:

Titanic, which was once as graceful as chariot of eternity,
Now, lies deep beneath in untrespassed Atlantic's sanctity.
I will remember Titanic with its immortal pain,
As its life was as short as a droplet of rain.
The short and excruciating Titanic's journey,
Drove its passengers to their ultimate destiny.
With others, my soul was at the heavenly gate,
And I saw a blooming rose, on other side its fate.
Darkness enlightened me, with other souls at the gate,
And we saw the ocean with terror bathe.
Life battled death giving me an encouraging light,
Life within my diseased heart saw that dreadful night.
Deep in the clouds creating a picture of moaning souls,
And I saw Titanic's journey towards heaven by the ghoul.

- Chintan Shah.