मेरे नोट में क्या खोट??

एक कविता 500 के नोट को समर्पित!!

The cyclist and the dogs.

Dogs and Cyclists have a very good and deep relationship, neither of them ever converse but claim to understand each other's motives very well. While a cyclist sees every dog as a motivation (A loud bark and small sprint of dog can pump your pedaling might exponentially), a dog sees every cyclist as an opportunity to show his importance in the area. Both have mutual respect and some levels of other mundane feelings like fright, hatred, disgust, 'catch me if you can' etc.

I face dogs often, and on my cycling routes, I remember all the pit stops where I see their ever welcoming personalities. So much so, that I inadvertently remember the number and colors (I don’t think that makes me racist) of these fellows roadsters on each of their favorite roadside hangout. When I say welcoming, it includes, growling noises, stares, few hops to climb over the bicycle etc. etc.  And as a reciprocation, I too have some gestures, like not looking in the eyes, pedaling really slow, maintaining distance of around 2 feet (only if other 'big feet' vehicles permit you) and last but not the least, not trying to communicate--IN ANY FORM. But even after so much grace, there are moments of stiffness, especially when the situation is only slightly abnormal--Like unchained bicycle.

Some week ago, I was passing through this narrow road, in one of the localities behind my housing society, the road was narrow,  steep and high.  I was in my last few kilometers for the day (Read totally exhausted, panting and brain blacked out) and was very keen to finish the remaining distance as early as possible. On both sides of roads there were row houses, each of them had large iron gates. Since it was early morning, like any other day, it was quiet and peaceful.

There were innocuous looking street dogs (a white and a Black), who have never interacted with me ever before, and I ignored them. I was only focusing on the road which was getting steeper and to make it easy I lowered the gear. As if height was not enough, the switch of gear unchained the rear axle and I started pedaling to a nowhere. I had to stop!!

With full focus on the chain, I bent and tried to figure out how to bring the bicycle back to operations. And as soon as I figured out how to do it, I heard a growl. I still tried to ignore it as a dog fight and went about fixing the chain. And the chain was fixed in next few seconds, but growl had grown louder. I lifted my head and found nicely combed, German Shepherd staring back at me, besides him seated his human caretaker, busy with his mobile.  The looks were not friendly!!

I pulled back a little and tried my 'I am not a bad guy' look at him, and he looked least impressed. Which I think was my first mistake. This somehow enraged him and he cautiously started stepping towards me. I was still not worried much, but that feeling was short-lived. With a loud strong bark, I was introduced to an upcoming danger. The barks became louder and I kept stepping backwards. I was getting a feeling that this is going to be my first real tryst with a friendly creature, in an unfriendly situation. And to worsen, the dog got into an attacking position, and I was totally taken aback. That span of maybe 30 seconds felt like 30 minutes. And as it was meant to be the human care taker intervened and asked his dog to rest, on which with some reluctance he did, still barking.

I exhaled and things got pacified, but not for long. What the bark of one single dog had started was more fierce. The barking sounds started cascading like dominoes. Louder barks coming from all along the 100 yards street. For the first time, in my months of commuting through that street,  I realized that every single row-house had a domesticated dog. Each of them trying to bark his/her lungs out at me. Each of them trying to break the iron gates and dissect me with canine canines. Turning my head, to my surprise, I found the street dogs (One White and one black) looking at me with utter pity. Like saying, why the hell you got noticed by one of these elites. I smiled at them, and moved along, strolling with my bicycle.

So what was this incident all about? I cannot figure out anything that I had done to piss the canines off, but still I did. My only fault, I happened to stop there, which I am free to do, and don’t usually do. And I got attention of an overtly attention monger dog who under domestication had started suspecting every human being other than his care takers. Worst he had company of some other (Similar attention monger, inhibited by domestication) dogs who reacted just at one bark, without even noticing the reason. Seems, all of the canines believed that the only reason to show their worth is to find a reason and bark at the peak of their voice. And the street dogs, knowing the reality of all, only smiled. And Cyclist, me, only felt sorry, to never to go to that street again.

Didn't find interesting..now read the last paragraph with Indian Media in mind. #intolerance

Rain I demand.

The Window of focus

Recently, I got this wooden frame from one of my colleague's sweet box that he brought from Dubai. The nicely finished softwood frame was an enclosure for the compartment that held high quality dates with nuts studded to them. The sweet was nice, but the wooden frame was better to catch my eye. I still don’t understand what pushed me to grab it from the trashes and keep it as souvenir.

I grabbed it, without understanding what I would do with it. My initial thoughts were that its geometrically good looking shape may serve as a good frame for my important notes on the desk board. Then I tried to assume it as a photo frame to highlight a photo, but that meant a photo to be placed on my desk, which was for sure a 'no'. And then, with total indecisiveness on its fate, I placed it over the corner of my cubicle, right at my eye level.

The frame has become an eye-catcher since then and I have become a target to whole set of jokes, questions and satires. Some call it a window to hear, some call it window to watch on-goers etc. , but what all of them see in common, is a window. And so do l, consequently, the way I placed it and with my intention to attach something meaningful to it, I have started calling it as my 'window of Focus '.

As simple it may sound, the Idea of having a window of focus has started appealing to me. The 12X15 cms. of the viewing area makes the rest of the view separated from it. I Look at it and only find what's limited within its boundaries. It restricts my options. It helps me see the details of a region, which I would otherwise ignore. It makes me appreciate the compactness of various components that make up that view. And as it stands tall and upright before my eyes, I see things from an angle that is purely mine.

This ordinary thing, as a concept, has proven more metaphoric than any other in recent times to me, in terms of its applicability. We are modern day jugglers, we juggle with many clubs, namely personal life, professional life, E-Life (Social Networking) and creative life (Creative Things that we really want to do.). We all feel this pain of missing out on an important thing while pursuing a rather common one. We all look for a view that would give us what we need to look for to achieve the best.  A need to appreciate the components that make our lives is felt at every stage we hit. But the time we are left with to achieve it, challenges us all.

So a window, four wooden walls of parameters that can separate our worldly activities from the ones that are needed the most, can make this work .So, Let me help you out with creating one such window.


To start with, Making a choice on the parameters (Walls) is most time staking but indeed is one time job. If done nicely can create a frame that would always give the best view possible and help us act on the right areas. To suggest, these walls can be Time, Money, Health and Emotions. Now the activities to focus may be judged on these areas through a series of questions like:

·         What are the activities That need immediate attention?--Time

·         What are the activities that if not done, would put me in financial loss?--Money

·         What needs to be done to keep me in good health?--Health

·         What needs to be done to keep me emotionally upright?--Emotions.

An objective listing of the answers to above, can give a good score to prioritize the activities to be done. And so..You get your focus..

Now as easy it may sound, the window made up of the above walls can be very big and may keep you bewildered for  a considerable amount of time, for the simple reason being, the generality of these parameters (walls). These parameters are more or less a part of most of the things we take up, while the value of each differs in everything we do. Clearly, we got an area of focus, but then it’s still bit big. So to restrict our view further, we create another window within this window.  This time with more specific walls.To suggest here, these can be Work, Family, Self and Society. And we perform the same steps again, this time on the areas derived from the previous window, here the questions would be:

·         What are the activities important for my family.--Family

·         What needs to be done to deliver satisfactory results at work.--Work

·         What are the activities that make me feel better as human being.--Self

·         What are the activities that make me a better social being.--Society

The window within window gives a better focus now. This can be further developed telescopically, till the  point focus is achieved. The beauty of 'windows of focus' is that the two windows may be built with parameters totally independent of each other but would still give a sensible view. 

The focused views thus prepared, can not only provide you the areas of focus, but also the areas of challenges and hence can help you gather the right ammunition to overcome those. By gathering the right focus, the challenges can be tacked in time, well before they become problems.  So create your own window of focus and appreciate the wooden frame.