What a 3 year old child can teach us

Children are one of the most beautiful creation of nature. Their innocence, curiosity, beauty, naughtiness can melt any heart. Spending time with a child is the perfect stress buster, a child will take you in some other world and you will leave your notion of the real world, all your problem, issues that are bothering you behind when you are playing with a children. You are just a character in his play, a part of his imagination, a puppet in his hands, you follow what he orders and you enjoy obeying to him/her. I spent a lot of time with my nephew in past few days and he taught me some very valuable lessons.

Forgiving: Children never hold grudges against anyone. You might scold them, tease them, do not give them what they want and that will make them very angry. You may even make them cry but they will forgive you soon and forget everything in a moment. Children do not have any grudge against anyone. They will play with you in the same cheerful manner as they always do and there won’t be any impact of past next time when you engage with a children. They truly forget and forgive and thus they do not carry any negativity, if only we can put behind the complaints we have against people, we can also live a very happy life without carrying any baggage.

Being Curious: It’s but obvious that children are most curious being on the planet, not only human children but children of any species are always wondered by the amazing world around them and they want to experiment with it in any way they can. Once they learn to speak, children can really annoy you with all kinds of question and they will keep asking same questions again and again though you have replied countless time. But I guess that is the reason of their learning, as we grow up we just stop asking questions. We do not find anything incredible or wonderful, we just have a feeling of indifference. On many occasions, we just feel shy, inferior or extremely uncomfortable in asking anything. Our learning stops as soon as we stop being curious. I think children teach us to keep asking questions, to keep wondering about everything around the world, to keep expanding our knowledge and learning new things.

Optimum utilization of resources: As we grow up, we want specific tools for everything else we don’t start doing our work. But lack of resources is not something that bothers a child. In his world of imagination, rules are quite flexible, anything can become anything. A truck can become an ambulance, a garbage truck, a police truck, a boat and it may fly also sometimes. It can talk if it has too else it will just honk its horn. Animals can replace one another, they can talk if they have to else they are just statues. A simple cardboard box can become a palace, a truck, a boat or a UFO whatever purpose a child find fit for it. Steel glasses are building blocks for palaces and fortress, headphones can become stethoscope, and humans can become anything. You may be a friend of the child helping him in his mission or an enemy who is destined to get killed someplace. I think we should also be flexible and imaginative like child instead of being so rigid on our demands and that can help a lot when it comes to chase our dreams.

Make New friends: Children are great at making friends, they can make friends across ages and they do not hesitate in initiating for new relationships. Although many times they act quite selfish in terms of not sharing their toys or food but that is part of growing up. As time demands, they form bonds quite quickly and play like they are brothers/sisters forever. As we grow up, we feel safer in our established close friend circle and we stop giving chances to people and also we stop trying to many more friends.

Be Honest about your fears: Children do not try to act smart and conceal their fear. They are quite open about it as they are yet to get ‘wise’ enough to judge what an acceptable fear is and what is not. They may be afraid of the moon, the old guy next door, the loud aunty across the street, or the small insect that has no idea what he is doing on the wall. But children will express their fear openly and given some encouragement they also face their fear and get over it. As we grow up, we start hiding our fears be it failures to accomplish our goals, not able to approach our love, getting fat, being depressed and we never let anyone to encourage us to get over them and we are stuck forever in them getting suffocated internally.

Live in present: I think this is the biggest thing we can learn from a children. A child does not live in either past or future. He exists entirely in the present, he has no memory of what he did in the past and he is not bothered about what he is going to do in future and that’s why they are always happy, cheerful, optimistic and excited about life. They do not carry any baggage. They are at peace at what they are right now but as soon we grow up half the time we are in past and remaining half we are worrying about future and thus little is left to enjoy about the future.

Simplify the world around you: Kids don’t believe in complicating the world much, they keep it simple. They believe the purpose of living is to play, play with anything they can get in hand, they talk in simple language, if they don’t understand a word they will make a new word for it and then the entirely family has to use that vocabulary. Now it makes the shopkeeper quite puzzled when we ask him to give us ‘bhui’ which is the word coined by my nephew for cars or ‘konoya’ in place of ‘khilona’ but it works for him and it works for us also these days. We should also simplify the world around us if we can’t understand its complexity, redefine few things according to our own convenience and live happily.

Saying No: Nobody says NO quickly with absolute emotionlessness than kids. If they won’t to, they won’t share their chocolate or toys with you and they would abruptly say No to you making a mockery of you in front of many. Such an important quality some of us later forgot and found us extremely uncomfortable to utter this simple word which led us into multiple troubled situations. Keep it simple, say no if you don’t want to do anything and there will be peace in life.

Laugh & be happy: Children have the purest form of happiness, unperturbed from anything, their smile is the most innocent feeling in the world and they laugh wholeheartedly and they actively find reasons to laugh. A children can be happy if he gets chocolate, cake, a new toy, a ride on bike, on watching a stupid cartoon, someone making weird expression or at times on nothing, they are genuinely happy from inside. It’s such a cruel reality that we kill these happiness later by all the expectation we put on them and ruthlessly make them run into the race of life else every children can teach us to find happiness in small joys of life and celebrate them.

I think we face 2 big responsibilities now. First to revive the inner child in us that we mercilessly killed to become successful, mature, acceptable and whatever pretence we have to do to make a place in society. We have to learn to be happy again, learn to do things that makes us happy, learn to become immature and learn to stop thinking much about consequences all the time. At the same time, we have these tremendous task of saving children of these generation to become the rats in many of the races we want them to run. We have to stop making a champion out of them in everything. 

Parents start competition so early; our child learn to walk 1^st, our child learn to speak first, it looks so stupid that children are being ruthlessly converted into ‘trophy child’ and they are another ‘showpiece item’ to flaunt. We have to let them live like children, let them score 70%, let them play in garden and let them waste time on top of the roof gazing stars, let them be the creator of the future instead of making them programmed robots first in school and then in workplaces.

We have this incredible task of preserving smiles of all the children and I hope by doing so we will be able to meet our own inner child. :) 

Turning 25..........

Let’s rewind our clock a bit, when we were child, small height, very less power, we often used to dream about growing up as soon as we can. There is always a relative frame of reference, when we were in 2^nd standard we thought that 5^th standard students were really big and huge, they must be pretty intelligent too. When we reached 7^th standard, 5^th standard appeared to be stupid infants while 10^th standard students looked like super intelligent and super powerful. Then we reached, 1^st year of college and 10^th standard students appeared like dumb kids worrying over useless issue like board exams while final year students seemed to have got everything sorted, most of them had jobs and gf/bf and a well-planned life ahead.

When we reach final year we realize the irony the world is, we are as clueless about life as we were in 10^th standard or 3^rd standard, we still compete with the same bunch of people we were competing forever, sharma ji ka ladka still tops and yet he doesn’t become Einstein, Verma ji ka ladka is gold medalist in swimming yet he is worried about job and future, the charming guitarist also struggle with making a future and we escape from reality one more time and dream about an age where everything is settled.

25 seems like a milestone, a checkpoint, a year of introspection, I turned 25 few days back and I am revisiting all the pages of my life to compare the deviation of real version from the ideal version imagined at different points of life. It’s quite unfortunate I didn’t become a high flying hardcore WWE champion with a bad ass entrance music, I also didn’t become the first cricketer to score a triple century in an one day match and took 10 wickets in the same match, I have not even started my first novel far far away from the vivid imagination of living a retired life in outskirts of a hill station living like Ruskin Bond exploring nature and writing about its beauty, even my most practical and realistic dream of completing B.Tech by 21 from an IIT and then finishing MBA from an IIM by 23 and becoming a billionaire in the same year has tossed away. In the real life, I have finished my MBA and will be joining a job soon. Doesn’t look as fancy as I dreamt in childhood and yet I know I am living dream of many and I am grateful about it.

Now all microblogging sites are full of clichéd articles about mid-20s, dilemmas of life, checklist on 25^th year, 10 things to do before turning 30 and stuff and most of them have pretty much similar content. Our present generation at 25 is often stereotyped as unhappy, clueless, directionless, struggling and all kind of other negative adjectives. To some extent it is true also, many of us are indeed directionless. We are supposed to follow our passion which has lately become another cliché but most of us don’t know what that passion is and if we know we don’t know how much practical it is to pursue that passion. A large population went with the flow of doing engineering because that was what everyone was doing and now half of them are chasing the next must do goal of M.Tech/MBA/MS while those who have already done it are wondering whether their life was miserable before or miserable now.

We don’t know our goal is to be happy or to be rich and whether happiness follows money or not. We don’t know we want to spend our weekends with a bunch of friends or enjoying a movie alone eating Maggie. We are confused, that’s a fact because most of us didn’t believe in the iron fist rule of getting educated, searching for a job and then settling down in life. Unlike our previous generations we enjoy a long gap between getting a job and settling down and that is where we wander like lost souls. We fantasize ourselves with the multiple possibilities that exist in our life and the decision paths that could be followed right now and yet when it comes to taking a courageous decision, most of us panic and chicken out. We love and hate our cage of convenience at the same time. It is like the ‘ring of power’, we hate it and yet we can’t afford to lose it though we hate what it has turned us into.

Our generation is also the most masochist one. We are incredibly hard on ourselves to the extent of cruelty. We have reproached ourselves for not scoring 90% in boards, we have cursed ourselves on failing to get admission in our dream college, we feel inferior on gaining weight and getting bald, we always live a comparative life and thus we are also the most unsatisfactory bunch. We are always in a hurry to declare ourselves a loser, be it on not getting the job we desired, or getting rejected by the person we liked or even getting less marks in some stupid tests. Many of us start with a job that gives more money than what our parents are getting towards the end of their working life and yet we don’t feel happy or in many case not even contended. . There is always scope of doing more. That’s what all the books say, that’s what all the sports-persons say, that’s what the message all the inspirational movies give and that is how we were raised from the beginning. To achieve more, always remain hungry, always improve and keep fighting and keep moving. We have wonderfully converted our life into some Japanese anime, we don’t fight physically or with imaginative monsters we just look for better grades, more money and bigger jobs.

We are so much in need of motivation, we instantaneously share the blogs and articles of “It’s ok to feel lost in mid 20s” and stuff, a little empathy is all we seek because we feel that most people wouldn’t understand us. Indeed, it’s tough to explain to your parents why are you unhappy even with a 7 digit salary or to explain to your uncle who is doing the same thing from last 30 years that you don’t feel motivated to go to work as you find no meaning in it. 25 is the age when not being in a relation make you incompetent and inferior in some way. When ‘liking’ the pic of someone flaunting their biceps in gym or someone enjoying a drink in Goa makes you sad. When you are supposed to act in a mature way everywhere while you want to jump on Mickey Mouse in a fair.

May be everything we feel, hear, share is something that was common to all generation, we just have better and fancier platform to share them. May be all generations want to rebel from their previous conventions and yet all are trapped to them. May be the gossips and rants are transferred to whatsapp and facebook from pan addas and barber shops. These questions always ponder me, are we the most complaining and unsatisfied generation or our misery has been publicized much?

I get a weird feeling when I think about the fact that Nadal had already achieved a career grand slam before turning 25, Sachin was already a living legend, Miley Cyrus has already earned millions, people much younger than me are achieving accolades far superior than what I can imagine with my conventional life and yet I know I have my own set of achievements. I appeared in some of the toughest competitive exams; cracked a few, screwed a few; I competed with some of the brilliant minds of the country to get a good college and I also competed with the selected lot again to get a job. I have already travelled a lot of country and many more places are on the list. I have tasted some of the finest cuisine and I will taste more. So far, Bhutan is the only foreign country I have been, but still an achievement, isn’t it? I didn’t write any novel, yet I am managing my blog for more than 7 years.

I think the origin of most of our pain lies in the ‘larger than life’ life we all imagined for us in our youth. Guess, life doesn’t work that way. Your life don’t change much even if you get a great job or an average job. There are always problems, worries, anxieties you have to fight. May be all those who look very happy in their Facebook profile are also fighting with the same, social media is the biggest scam everyone put to appear happy. I have seen people most unhappy once they achieve the biggest goal of their life, then they feel purposeless. May be the crux of the life was all about celebrating the small success, be it losing 5 KG weight, making that cake eatable for the first time in life, travelling in a local train for the first time, writing the story you always want to and get it published, finally summoning the courage to ask that girl out, get rejected, and denounce our attachment with the materialistic world with friends later that night.

May be all of us can’t be the superhero we thought we would become and save the world, or the billionaire that owns 100 cars, maybe we won’t get a girlfriend like Emma Watson or a boyfriend like Ryan Gosling, we won’t have a private Jet. May be life was never supposed to be a fairy tale, it would always be this harsh and illogical, some people will betray us, we would lose things we consider the most important for our survival, we would abandon many of our dreams, we have to change the path many times due to things not in our control, we will fail and we will fail more, we will succeed and yet we won’t feel happy.

The bottom line is, life is as dramatic or as boring as we perceive it to be, let us continue on the path we have created and then get drifted again from it, met new people, lose old people, go to new places, we are just 25, we are still young, we are too inexperienced to proclaim our success and too immature to understand we have failed. However let us never ever abandon things that make us happy no matter how busy or helpless we become. Sing that song, practice that dance, write that story, run that marathon, finish that painting and then do it again. Do not get stuck, soon you will turn 50 and like all the clichéd article says you will definitely regret what you didn’t do when you were 25. 

The silence aftermath..........

The hostel is almost empty, the rooms have gone quieter, there is no rush on dadu’s shop, bishu da’s day canteen is not opened today, no one is playing music, there are no laughs beneath the Bodhi tree, no one is sitting on the MTR benches, the old campus seems to be meditating quietly disturbed only by occasional noise made by dry leaves which helplessly blows under the force of wind. Few autos are coming and students are leaving one by one, some formal handshakes and some sincere goodbyes, some meaningless all the best and some silent thumbs up with wet eyes followed by one last look at the same building where countless memories were created in past few months. It started with a bang, loud and clear and it is ending much more silently.

Just a day before the situation was drastically different. There was rush and commotion everywhere. Students were running here and there. Some were enjoying the company of their friends while some were being tour guides to their parents explaining every building and its history. Parents’ faces were beaming with pride and students were finally happy that they have given the ultimate happiness to their parents. Everyone was trying to capture as much of this moments as they can, people were clicking photos, making videos, taking selfies. There was so much noise which can be followed only by such stark silence.

The campus is not sad, it has learnt to control his feelings. It has sad goodbyes to many batches and it will continue to do so. It doesn’t display its emotions now, it is rock solid now, it doesn’t suffer in silence anymore, silence is the way it bids good-byes to batches because 2.5 months later it has to clean the slate again. New batch will come, new stories will be created, the drama will continue and the campus has to become strong again to withhold all the drama and then silently say goodbye to that batch also. Such is the plight of campus, it is part of all the pictures, it is tagged in all the photos and yet it has only silence to offer in return, the most mature way to say goodbye.

I intentionally booked ticket a day later, because I wanted to witness this silence. Here I am sitting in my room, the room which witnessed my ambitions, my hard work, my frustration, my desperation and much more. The room which pitied me for being so vulnerable and the room which congratulated me on my accomplishment. It has done the same for countless people, some of them might have been very successful leaders in the corporate now. Mayank Sharma will leave it today forever and 2.5 months later it will find its new resident who will bring his own culture to the room. He will stick new posters, he will play different songs, he will host different people here. Every room has his story which it never shares, the room respects the privacy of its resident.

The professors are habitual of this silence. They have talked to many students informally yesterday perhaps for the 1^st time and asked them to keep in touch though they know most of the students won’t. They know they have taught bunch of mature professionals who might never remember them again. Yet they know that they have contributed to shape the future of the country once more and they will continue to do so. They are liking our photos and videos on social media which they have done in past and they will continue to do so for the future batch. They are also enjoying the silence.

This silence is enlightening, this silence is defining, this silence is tranquilizing, this silence has to be earned, no one is entitled for it. This silence is the testimony of all the noise that was there for past 18 months and this silence is the reward for it. This silence is music, this silence is memory, this silence is a beautiful poetry, this silence is spirituality, this silence will be followed by noise and like yin yang they complete the circle of life in XLRI.

The campus looks beautiful today, it is sleeping now, it is resting, it has worked hard enough, it needs rest now, it has to prepare himself for the future. The flowers are desperately trying to cheer up departing people by their colors and smell, the trees are shading leaves in sadness, the wind is slow and smooth and occasionally stirs up few memories. The eating places will be shut for next few months now, workers will be gone, cobbler won’t be here, they will rest too and then the circle will start again. New faces, same story. Hearts will be broken and people will be shattered and then someone of something will bloom life again into them.

In the end, everything will make sense. Every story, complete or incomplete, will give a meaningful conclusion. Whatever happened, expected or unexpected, predictable or unpredictable, painful or happy will open new ways and people will ride on new experiences from the experiences they have got here. In the end, you don’t hold any grudge, you let it go, you find peace, you don’t carry any baggage, you are silent from inside like the campus. You pack your bag, you say goodbye, and then you are gone, you become part of a frame then, you become 1 of the many pages in the history, you become a story which is there in the book and those who care about will read and others will ignore.

XLRI, here I am saying good bye, enjoying the silence and thanking you for it after all the noise. Thank you for accepting me as a part of your glorified history.

To all the wonderful people I have met here who were taming their own demons like me, to all the stories that were concluded, that left incomplete and that were never started, to all the victories and failures, to all the hard work and laziness, to all the memories that will be cherished and to all the memories that will be forgotten, to all the disturbing noise and to all the calming silence, Thank you!! J

Last walk in the campus.....

Yesterday I wrote my last examination as a student, so this blissful moment right now is the most awaited moment of my life, at least from the last 2 years. Finally being done with a course that has a physical, emotional and mental toll, I don’t have the count of nights I spent fully awake juggling between multiple tasks. The brain wrecking assignments, running from one deadline to another, quizzes, exams, projects, GDs, interviews, events, the mind is burdened with too much memories as a lot has happened in last 2 years.

I started packing few hours back, collecting and classifying everything, what I will take back and what I will leave here. Going through all those books, notes and material one more time I tried to relieve all those moments again. Running to classes with the notes in hand, or pulling an all nighter getting immersed in these books, who was sleeping in the class when I was writing this paragraph, who was playing with mobile, what was I thinking when reading page no. 29. It’s interesting, how every day seemed to be a long agonising journey with classes beginning from 9 AM and continuing till 9:15 PM, clock just used to stop in the afternoon lectures with everyone trying to stay awake somehow and now, at this moment right now, it appears as if all happened in few seconds, BOOM. You slept properly on one fine Sunday of June 2015 and the next time you opened your eyes, you are here with everything flashing through your mind like a dream and I am trying to capture all these memories before I forget them.

7262 is the exacted numbers of mail I received since joining XLRI. There are mails of project details, forming groups for project, marks, grades, company details, getting rejected in a process, committee dinners, competitions, rules, events, mail threads where people appended their part in a PPT or a report and many other things that were integral part of my life from last 2 years. Checking the mail almost every hour and cursing our life because of the deadlines was a daily routine. Now, in this very last moment the mailbox is filled with mails requesting testimonials for people, testimonials for people who I know completely and have spent major time span or testimonials for people who are just added in my facebook as friends.

I was writing testimonials for people yesterday and that’s the funny thing about writing testimonials or farewell message. You are supposed to write only the good things, you just count all the happy memories you have with a person and you put all the goodness that he/she exhibited in some way and you write some lines describing him/her and the experience with him/her as something worth cherishing which might not be the reality but this is how we humans are. We want to end things on a happy note, we don’t want to carry any baggage or have any grudge against anyone because this is the ending, you won’t be seeing all these faces again, you won’t be talking with many of them again and thus the compulsion of having +ve last moments. The thought in itself is not wrong and that’s the reason I am writing this post.

Those who know me know that I am the last person to get sentimental or nostalgic about the college ending. In fact, this is something I always wished for; as from the day I entered this college I knew that I am one of the most unfit person for this course. I was never a consistent performer in my life, and MBA demands consistency. Consistent hard work, consistent networking, consistent efforts in extra curricular, consistent courage to step in outside and attend the classes when all you want is to get lock in your room and sleep. So much this course has changed me that Mayank Sharma of 20 months back would hate this Mayank Sharma and vice verca, I can’t even call myself a procrastinator now such was the impact of course on me, I became a proactive person trying to finish everything as early as possible because there is always a probability that last hour can come up with a new deadline and then we have to firefight to an all new level altogether.

So, I had tough times, I was frustrated a lot, for a person who always thinks different from the usual, questioning the status quo and trying to be original, I find it hard to explain everything from a set of frameworks or doing things in one or two particular way. For a person who has habit of spending 2 hours tracing the route of river Ganges from origin till ending or reading at 3 AM the role of Rasputin in Russian history, it’s hard to concentrate on daily quizzes and study material. I am, in any way, not questioning the course in anyway, this is another subject to debate on, but my habits and style were completely different from what I was supposed to do, and hence the struggle.

Along with the academic struggle, there was social struggle too which starts from me avoiding the use of any ‘recreational substance’ which is considered mandatory to network or essential for social inclusivity, I have to find my ways in fitting in into a party where people’s imagination and participation reached a new ‘high’ altogether. Sometimes I managed, sometimes I chose to silently retreat inside my room so I wasn’t always able to make everyone happy around me which also happened because of my continuous insistence to get things done. I learnt the hard lesson that you can’t be a good person or remain good in everyone’s book when you chose to become the guy who gets thing done. This choice in itself will make you villain in many people’s life but again someone has to be the bad guy and fortunately or unfortunately it was me in most cases.

I can ponder over many things I did which I now think I shouldn’t have done and vice verca. I took trouble over things that proved to be completely unnecessary, I was hard on myself when it was not at all required. I wanted to interact with some people just to get to know them more which I never did. I wanted to learn few more things but I was too myopic to get away with the temptation of improving things in hand. There are multiple scope of improvements, but I am happy with the final version of what I have become. I am quite contented with my achievements. I have set the bare minimum expectations for me at the start and I was able to achieve a lot more than what I thought I could and hence I am thankful to destiny and god.

There are numerous threads I can touch on but that I would do in subsequent posts. Right now, at this very moment is not the time to find faults or complaint. It is time to be thankful for this opportunity no matter how much hard it was. It doesn’t change the fact that I was given a chance by destiny to study in one of my dream college. I competed with the best minds of the country, the cream, people with much greater intelligence and far brilliant mind than me, people who had far richer background, people whose skill set outclassed mine by leaps and bound and somehow I survived. The classes were full with abundant idea ranging from complete shit to marvellous ones. I have experienced the sheer wonder of creative and brilliant mind here, both the professors and student. I have been in classrooms of some of the legends who ever stepped in the field of academia. I have studies some of the best course of my life which really broadened my horizon and expanded my thinking level. My struggle was not a struggle for existence, but a struggle for excellence and which in turned has carved a survivor out of me. A ‘saiyan warrior’ far more powerful than his initial version.

As I walk down on these roads again for one last time, step into these empty hostels who echo wonderful memories created by multiple batches. I am fully aware that I am walking down the same paths where legends of corporate world today had walked and also I am grateful for the fact that some of the people I have walked these paths together will rule the corporate world tomorrow. I have studied with future entrepreneurs, CEOs, CHROs, CMOs, CFOs or people who would quit the conventional path and bring a positive change in the society.

XLRI, I would be honest to speak that I won’t miss you, I am not sad, I am very happy leaving from here but that doesn’t mean I am not grateful to what you have provided me and how you helped me to reach a new potential altogether and how just being an ‘XL Mafia’ gives a completely new dimension to the small towner Mayank Sharma. Yes, I have complaints but I have my experiences, my joys, my delights, my moments and learnings and I believe whatever I have experienced here will definitely help me to move a bit closer to my dreams. 

Bye Bye XL, Till we meet again ! :) 

3 Indians in Bhutan .....

We all dreamt of a foreign trip in our childhood. Foreign countries always fascinate us, somehow we were raised with the opinion that foreign countries are better than our country. They are cleaner, modern, sophisticated and people are well cultured. Foreign visit is one of the great middle Indian dream. As we grow up we see some of our seniors and fellow students who are employed with IT firms travel to various places, one of the greatest perks and motivation in life of an IT engineer, site visit. We saw their photos and we get excited. Then those who go for post-graduation studies also put photos of Halloween, first snow, some random colorful forest, a big clean empty street and we naturally unfollow them because we don’t want that kind of pressure in our life.

One other important dream in college is a trip. For our generation who was in teenage when ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ was released, an awesome trip with college friends is a must do task in life. Lots of plans throughout graduation which never takes shape, cancelled Goa trip every year, and finally post-graduation trip plans that somehow one has to execute else one’s degree will be incomplete. So we started with thinking about plan for north-east India back in January which never got executed as we were too lazy to book tickets and prepare a large group for economies of scale. Back in August the trip itch started again and became unbearable so the effort to create a group of 6 people for a north east trip started again.

At our peak success, we had 9 people but then as it happens tickets were booked for only 4 and that too for a Bhutan trip and as the last scene in climax a person dropped out 3 days before making it only 3 person, somehow we were determined that without this trip our souls will be trapped in college forever making random trip plans which will eventually get cancelled and we will haunt the generations living in hostel so we decided to go forward with the trip and we are glad now we did it.

Our trip started with a 6 AM train from Jamshedpur to Kolkata. As we are accustomed to stay up which is a safer and reliable option we did that. We reached Kolkata and went to Park Street where we had a luxurious breakfast, far luxurious from the economic constraint we put on ourselves running on economy of scale. We have to stop at MacD in the front as apparently we weren’t western enough to use the ‘fully western washrooms’ at Flurys. After a coffee at MacD, we had no idea how to spend rest of our day as our train was around 11 PM. We reached the Kolkata station and slept waking up after 4 hours with no idea of where we were and how we reached here. We took a pleasant dinner at pizza hut at a mall and reached Kolkata station again.

The train moved exactly on time and we were hoping to have a sound sleep as we were travelling in sleeper class after a long time. As it turns out, sometimes the cold fresh air flowing throughout the coach from outside gives you a better sleep than AC coaches. All of us woke up after perfect sleep of 10 hours. I always consider trains as moving food outlets as I am fascinated by various items being sold inside the train and usually I try to experiment as much as I can. The items change in different region ranging from vadapav of Maharashtra, jhalmuri in Bengal, pakoda in rajasthan or we can have variation of same dish like aaloo bada, aaloo chop, aaloo bonda in different parts.

So we reached Hasimara station took a cab and crossed the Indo border Bhutan at Jaigaon. Boom, entered foreign soil for the 1^st time in life. We went to immigration office and got permit to visit Thimphu and Paro. The interesting thing about this trip was it was unplanned. We want to explore things as they come instead of a much planned schedule. We didn’t book any hotels, any cabs or talked to any travel agents. We were not even sure how much cities we will visit and in what order. Our sole intention was to explore and bump into unexpected situations making and hoping for unexpected events that will make the perfect journey and recipe for interesting stories.

We roamed around for a while observing the different architecture and dressing style. We had lunch at a restaurant where majority of dishes were Indian still we had some successful experiment with Bhutanese dishes. We hired a cab and our journey began. Our car rode through never ending spiral roads on hill well decorated with mist. The air was so fresh and cool, one can get high on oxygen. The sky so bright and clear with the full view of Milky Way, a delight to eyes of 3 Indians who were habitual of the polluted red sky of Jamshedpur from more than a year. We stopped midway for tea. Tea lovers will really enjoy Bhutani tea as it tastes different in a good way. Also, they serve tea in really large cups so you will feel quite fulfilled and contented at the end.

We reached Thimphu at night and too tired by the turny track, going uphill and downhill for 6 hours we just searched for a hotel and slept. In the morning, sunlight revealed the beautiful heaven we failed to appreciate in night. Thimphu is such a treat to the eyes, one can just gaze the bluish sky and silver clouds without getting bored for whole day. The house are beautifully made, streets are wide and empty, there are so many colors everywhere, one can easily get lost in them. Although most shops do not open and start functioning before 10 AM so one may find tough to find good breakfast. We somehow managed to get fried rice and tea and our tour began.

We first went to Thimphu Chorten which was pretty much like a temple. I learnt the concept that those cylinder shaped structures that everyone must have seen in Buddhist temples actually have prayers written on them and when you rotate them 360 degree, it means you have said those prayers. We next went to Buddha Dordenma and the whole experience was heavenly. Standing on the top of the mountain one can see the entire city from one end to another and what a beautiful sight that was. The air so fresh, people so cheerful, place so peaceful, wind so refreshing, complete stress buster. We wished to stay there forever, we didn’t want to move, we were so transfixed by the beauty and peace of that place. It’s still so fresh in my memory.

Later we went to another quite old looking temple, a zoo to see Bhutan's national animal  and lastly we visited the garden outside the king’s palace. We were getting used to Bhutan’s environment, traditions, life style and way of doing things by then. One interesting thing we discovered is in Bhutan if someone is waiting to cross the road then the vehicles stops and ask you to cross the road first, quite an amazing experience that was. I wonder if we start doing the same in India. We moved to a hotel with wifi as apparently it was little smothering to not check whatsapp once every hour.

Cities in Bhutan sleep very early. By 9 almost every shop is closed and lights are off. Streets are empty as if the city is abandoned. It’s the perfect time for travelers to wander as Bhutan is a safe place. So we wandered and discovered a pizzeria where we had some amazing dishes. Another good thing about travelling is you can turn off your worries and thoughts for a while and live in the moment and you can interact with other people more freely. We had some great conversations in the peace of night, topics we rarely discussed even though staying in the same hostel for a year. Most of the Bhutan’s cable show Hindi channels, so we weren’t so disconnected with the country but also there were some Pakistani news channel so it was interesting to see the same news from two different point of view.

We woke early next morning to visit Punakha, a small town. The road was quite bumpy but scenery and the weather were so delightful we didn’t feel the pain of the road. We stopped in between at Dochula Pass where there was a café and a temple. We were lucky, when we reached the top of the temple the clouds started making way for the most beautiful Himalayan panorama. I have no words to describe the feeling of that scene. The clouds slowly drifting apart like god himself is sketching the perfect scenery to describe the beauty of mountains. The bluish sky, the greyish clouds and the mountains slowly peaking in between shining with their glory with the little sunlight that struggled and fought multiple barriers to reach and rest at its final abode. So many shades of lights were visible from that spot, one can really wonder the palatte of god is filled with so many colors to cover the big canvas of nature.

We reached punakha and wandered here and there in the punakha dzong. Before that we sat in silence and enjoyed the music created by the merging of two rivers, Mochu and Pochu. 2 different water streams with different characteristics, 1 a little darker than the other, a little faster, more turbulent as if two distant cousin one a naughty one and another a shy and reclusive one meeting together and walking as a single entity afterwards. There was nothing much to do in punakha, it is one of that place where the journey is much more valuable than the destination. We returned in the night back at Thimphu and watched the King’s palace boasting of its royal luster and might in the beautiful lights that has covered its entirety as if protecting it from darkness. We were lucky to find a great place to dine. Food lovers will absolutely fall in love with Bhutan because the food here is so delicious yet so cheap.

We left Thimphu with a heavy heart in the morning. That’s the thing with beautiful places, they become part of your life very easily and then you don’t want to depart from them. In between the way, we discussed multiple ways through which we can reside in Thimphu permanently but we knew the fantasies can just help us escape from the reality for a while. Our next destination was Paro, another very beautiful city pretty close to Thimphu. We stopped in between at an old bridge made of chains and full of all those prayers, the typical clichéd image of any Himalayan Buddhist City.

In Paro, we booked a very cheap hotel for some reason as it was in the middle of town and it gave a feeling that we are part of the town not tourists. We went to Bhutan national museum first and realized that Bhutan is not about Buddhism alone, they have so many deities, and their mythology is completely different and unique. But the best feature was not on the inside of the museum but the outside part. The view was so mesmerizing, so divine, so serene, so pure, so many shades of green distributed all over the place, such a delight to the naked eyes and in between a river flowing, it was really a breath taking moment. You can just stand on a spot like this for hours and contemplate so many philosophical thing and I bet not even once you will think about your career or life or other materialistic trap for a second. Places like this take you a level away from your existing conscious, they appeal to your inner brain, they trigger those feelings and emotions which hitherto never comes out due to mundane worries.

Like the good parts there were bad parts also. As it was an unplanned trip we mostly relied on local drivers and their integrity to their profession. Sadly it was not the case. Our driver didn’t take us to multiple spots in Thimphu and Punakha giving lame reasons. He sent his friend to Paro and because of their internal colluding we missed a very important spot i.e. Tiger’s Nest. One is bound to get cheated in a foreign country and that was our lesson in Bhutan. The driver took us only till the bottom of the hill, he delayed in between multiple times to ensure we reach very late and then later he denied to wait saying he want to go back to Thimphu. We had a huge altercation but there was nothing much in our hand due to stubbornness of the driver and paucity of time. May be it was god’s way of calling us back to Bhutan one day to finish the unfinished business.

We returned with a very bad and heavy mood to Paro town but we were instantly cheered up by the delicious cuisines everywhere. We later hired a cab and visited a local temple afterwards we roamed around in the town for hours, stepping in at numerous shops, wandering here and there, thinking what to buy and whether to buy something or not as things were pretty expensive. Families and friends are bound to get hurt and angry if we don’t bring anything and as everyone does, we also hoped here and there to buy something affordable. The night was heavy as we knew it was our last night in Bhutan. Tomorrow we will be back to our homeland, the reality, the college, the career, the grades, and no escape from life.

We took a cab early morning and flowed in the beautiful scenery for one last time. It was like a slideshow of wallpapers. The colors will change so quickly on every turn. Suddenly, out of nowhere there will be a river peaking like a small child full of energy which will become thunderous like a mighty warrior boasting his full glory. There will be waterfalls here and there, so many of them and they are so beautiful to see from different angels. Such road trips definitely triggers some powerful imagination, something deep in your head, something you can feel but you can’t explain, something not controlled by rational part of your brain but something that makes you happy. Something that brings a very pleasant smile on your face. When you open the doors of your car, put your face out a little and feel the cold wind touching your face as if its giving you a thousand blessing, it’s reciting some peaceful hymn in your ear that is making you calm and happy from within. The mist diffused with the greenery and the blue sky turning once in a while makes you feel so close to nature. The ride was a never ending ride to joy.

We stopped for breakfast at the same hotel we stopped while coming and we just realized how quickly 3 days have passed. We wondered whether life will give such tranquil moments again or not. Our driver asked us whether we were married or not then he told us that he has married 4 times and he has 6 children. He also told that he is planning to divorce his present wife and marry again as he wants a daughter. Such sensitive topics in our country, quite a taboo which no one wants to talk on is so simple for this person. He was a jolly good fellow, he was a representative of Bhutan, and he was the emblem of Bhutan, a country known for giving happiness priority.

We came to Phuntsholing and we decided to cross the border by foot. There is a small corridor we went through and we were thinking that things won’t change much. It’s a border town, there must be multiple similarities but what a stark difference we found outside. It’s wonderful that India is same anywhere you go. We left a silent serene colorful town and we arrived at the same picture every Indian sees daily. Cars honking, Auto drivers screaming, roads full of traffic and complete chaos. The difference was quite powerful to the extent we felt like running back to Bhutan. But let’s face it, India is beautiful in its own way, we might not be as systematic as other countries but we have a heart of our own. I bet many people who always cribbed when they were here and left it, a part of them still misses India. No country can replace our motherland same as the fact that a mother may have few shortcomings but she is mother nonetheless. There is no perfect mother and our motherland is still dear to us inspite of all the flaws and we as proud children will help to cure these flaws. We boarded our train and returned to Kolkata, had a great breakfast again and came back to college.

 So our first foreign trip ended, only 5 days and so many memories, such vast experiences, Bhutan will make you fall in love with it easily. It’s one thing to read about a carbon negative country and completely different experience to feel the greenery and oxygen everywhere. It’s one thing to read that Bhutan is the happiest country in the world and completely different experience to see cheerful and friendly people talking in Hindi or English everywhere. A small country with simple people who respects you as a guest and once in a while you will fall in love with a happy face here. You may wish to return to that store but you know you won’t and you can’t. Bhutan is that happy face, which marks a deep impression in your heart and every time you remember that smiling happy face, there is a smile on your face too. Bhutan reminded us that life is much more than college, a high paying job, money or career. Life is about pursuing the real meaning of life, life is about finding love, life is about experiencing places and meeting new people. Life is about wandering and I hope I will wander more in my life, explore new places, fall into uncertain situations and have the same smiling face as I saw at every corner in Bhutan.