Role Models, Anyone???

‘Please name one person you consider as your Role Model’, so went one of our lecturers in a GMCS session held last month. And won’t believe it, there were some pretty amazing answers being circulated amongst a batch of 80 professionals. Apart from the usual to be expected ‘my parents’, Sachin Tendulkar or some filmstar Name responses, there were some pretty wacky ones too…right from MS Dhoni, Atif Aslam to (of all the people) Himesh Reshamiyya (reason- he makes optimum utilisation of all his natural resources, read- his nose) & height of heights, the ghost Manjulika from Bhool Bhulaiyya (reason- Good eye contact!!!!) The people who say that CAs are a serious lot lacking a sense of humour, should seriously have their heads examined or atleast, attend a GMCS class!

Well, amongst this crowd, there was one person who didn’t have any answer…If the prof would have asked me (she didn’t; thankfully), she would have drawn a blank. I tried hard that day to name one person as my role model, a person whose life I would wish to imitate & I suddenly found, that I liked being ME…accepting all my faults, foibles, my insensitivities. Much as I love my Mom, I can’t be like her. Call it my arrogance, ego, impertinence, Devil-may-care attitude or Whatever…Can’t imagine living any other person’s life!

And from that day, hearing those answers, questioning myself & others ‘Do Role Models still have relevance in this world?’ Can Filmstars, Cricketers, Businessmen be really called as role-models? Recently there was an issue when SRK was seen smoking while watching a cricket match…and somebody remarked that he should not smoke in public b’coz he was a role-model to millions. Agreed that the guy is good at what he does, but that does not mean that he should be expected to live an exemplary life in his personal space too…He is as humane as the rest of us & people should not forget it. The very premise of putting celebrities on a pedestal is really questionable: their real and reel lives seem to merge in to volatile heady cocktails of fear of unknown failures & of various romances of conveniences, centered on narcissism and hedonism.

There are many others who don’t go for the celebrity prototypes. These people seek out role models who exemplify the things they want to be and accomplish in life. For some it is people who stood their ground when others were willing to cave to convenience or peer pressure. For e.g. take the case of Vikram Akula, a guy single-handedly responsible for changing the financial face of many Indian villages. We may admire such people, but do we need to model our entire life on them. We forget that we are but admiring a particular facet of their personality. These people may have done many mistakes in their own lives, which we may not come to know of it anyways, because people choose to glorify what they like to read or see & not, what they don’t like. Here we are forgetting that life itself is not about Blacks or Whites, life is mainly Gray!

At the risk of sounding too sermonious, I really think that it’s okay to dream about others but an thorough education about our own potentials will open up more doors and lead us onto more paths than being in this fish bowl that these celebrity people call a life…As a slogan on my T-shirt proclaims-

I don’t have Any influences,
Any heroes;

It’s Just ME!

In search of Peace

This is something I found today in my old diary. Some words penned down at a particular point of time. Can't call it a poem, neither a prose, not even a lyric. Just some random thoughts...

I often think..What exactly is peace??
Is it something which we find only in happiness
Or can we find it in sorrow too??
Where shall i seek peace? Or will it find me?

Is it necessary to go to a temple to find it
Or could it be found in the teardrop of somebody's contended eye
Is it necessary to donate money to others,
Or can it be found by fulfilling wants of people we call our own
Can peace be found by seeing others making their farms lushly abundant,
Or could it be found in the sweat of our own brow seeping in the mother earth.

Can peace be found in the appreciation of the peers,
Or can it be found in the blessings of your elders
Can it be found in the the great emptiness of the oceans
Or in the lilting echoes of the mountains.
Can it be found in the embrace of a lover
or could it be sought amongst a child's joyous peels

And I found a answer that I already knew
Peace can be anywhere & how
Yes, It is present when I close my eyes,
But most of all, it is present, when I open my heart.

Optimum Utilisation of Resources!!

Appropos to my earlier blog post "Dare to be different", I have got many friends calling me up & telling me that I should be the first person to start practising what I preach. Point noted. That set my thinking wheels in motion (Uh-huh!). So, in addition to a hobby which I am good at (some may know that!), I am thinking of other possible areas, where my natural instincts lie & which will earn me great moolah too...Here are some thoughts that came to my mind:

1. My friend Shubhangi & me hit upon a great idea in bus one day, while travelling to our office. We were thinking on the lines of opening a 'Marriage Mall' which will be a one-stop place to cater to all needs of the public- rght from planning minute details of the marriage, to the actual ceremony to even post-marriage formalities. We have infact also come up wth an innovative promotional scheme, Ek marriage aur Ek Divorce par (provided offcourse, both conducted through us) Doosri Shaadi, absolutely free!!
How this innovative scheme came about..Don't ask me, that itself is a long story...Suffice to say it stemmed from our collective realisation, Ke Boss, India mein kuch aur beeke, na beeke, Shaadi always sells!! (somebody is going to beat me for this!). Ahem.. we have the entire management team & project report in place, are there any Private Equity investors reading my blog???

2. Talking about marriage, I have got another Plan B (an ace) up my sleeve, if plan A doesnt work out. I am thinking about opening a marriage bureau. This I think goes along wth my brilliant track-record, ke Aaj-tak kisi bhi friend ko jiske saath chidhaya hai, usi ke saath uska fix ho gaya (A pat on my own back for my instinctive genius!)
P.S. 1- I am not kidding, manyof my 'committed' friends will vouch for this
2- Never mind the fact, that my own score in this dept is thankfully zero.

3. Don't think I think only about marriage, I have got another great idea (Actually that's my another friend Urvi's idea for myself) ....To start a HR consultancy firm. Well, for the last few weeks, I have been trying to search for a good job profile for myself & also find a replacee for my current position. And in the process, have contacted so many people & promised so many tall promises, that I led Urvi to suggest this idea. (P.S. I am still trying to find an CA I.T. replacee in my profile, interested people Puh-leeze contact me)

4. If any of the above don't work, i still have a Plan D...Going for teaching...Well, maine logon pe itne bhashan jhaade hai, ke almost everybody thinks that I will be a gud teacher (Never mind the plight of the poor students!) Hey wait a sec...Doesn't this criterion apply to a Politician toooo...
Now that's another gr8 idea....

So what do u thnk will work for me!!