Random Thoughts

We all know about the technological advancements of the west, how their cities are far cleaner, far less populated than ours, how well organized their traffic system is. But let's talk about the things which are better or quite different in India, but before we do that, let's take a glance at a few of their good systems as well. If you are not a European person, health insurance is mandatory all the time, you also need to have travel insurance before you make any travel plans. Healthcare is really good in Europe but people do pay their taxes properly and in some countries, it is as high as 60% of their income. You are not supposed to make any noise after 10 PM, because you will be disturbing people's sleep. Your employer can't ask you to sit after your office hours, a student can't work for more than 20 hours a week in a part time job. No one can break the minimum wage rule, it's around 1600 euros/month in Belgium, the class divide is not that huge. There are se...

It was a long flight from New Delhi to Paris, I was thinking that I’ll be feeling really emotional while leaving my home country but nothing of the sort happened, it was not much different from any other travel of mine, the only thing that was different, my worry of losing my documents. International flights are much more spacious than the domestic flights and it looked even more spacious due to fewer passengers in these corona times. As soon as I boarded, I took out my notepad and started filling the pages with what I was experiencing at that moment, to be honest, it was going to be so new that I couldn’t even imagine anything, no thoughts were popping in my mind and quite to my surprise, I was not at all anxious about the upcoming events. Looking out of the window really felt like peeping into heaven, altitude was high and pollution was less. I couldn't get the clear sky shot but here's one of France from the sky. France Paris airport We landed at 6 AM local time at Paris air...

I love talking to different people and I’m always looking to learn something from someone or the other. I consider myself a fairly observant guy, I’m always seeking to understand why people do things thing that they do. Most of the things we do in our daily lives are being done unconsciously, hardly we are conscious of the things we do or even of our own self thus limiting most of our experiences. Now coming to the experiences, a lot of people say to me that they want to experience everything, there is only one life and they want as many experiences as possible. Nothing sounds problematic in this argument, even if you believe in reincarnation, you can desire to get every possible experience in this lifetime. But people just talk the talk, don’t actually walk that talk. Almost everyone who says the above lines is rarely a seeker of experiences, all their talk ends with only three or four things, getting laid down or getting a girlfriend/boyfriend, trying every kind of booze and drugs, t...

Once lived a mighty king named Raj Vardhana in the southern part of India, his subject loved him as he always treated them fairly. King had a lovely wife and 4 beautiful children, he had everything he wanted, an empire, wealth, power, subjects who praised him like a god, and everything else he desired. But all that happiness was not long-lived, his neighbor empire attacked his kingdom and due to the treachery of one his courtier, he lost the entire kingdom. King and his family fled away but unfortunately during the escape, he lost his wife, and later in the forest, he lost his children as well. Everything was lost in a moment, the king was disheartened beyond words, he had nothing left to live for. His condition became such that his own countrymen were unable to recognize him, there was nothing left with him that could be used to tell that he was once a king to a mighty empire. Few days passed and the king was still wandering from one village to another, in hope of that someone might r...

Who doesn't wants to be successful, right? But very few understand the importance and need for success in their lives. I know everyone succeeds in some or the other way in their lives, but I believe that every one of us once in a while dreams of being as successful as Elon Musk or any other famous personality. We keep hearing all the wonderful stories from the lives of famous and successful personalities, we fancy their lifestyle and in doing so often set ourselves on the wrong path. Dreaming big is a good thing, but let's be practical here, we dream only the success, never the hard work that needs to be put on to achieve that. A famous person once said that passion is just an idle person's idea, successful people just give their everything to a particular idea and if the number of hours put into that is sufficient, success will be achieved automatically. Biggest hurdles Before we move towards the dark side of success, let's talk about the herd mentality. We often becom...

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine about the kind of songs we produce in our country, most of the Bollywood songs revolve around one single topic,  LOVE . No matter the subject of the movie, it is almost impossible to find a movie without an angle of romantic love. I'm pretty sure that Bollywood directors would have forced a love story even in a movie like 'Man who knew infinity'. We've got so obsessed with love that we've forgotten about the other virtues of human life. Countless movies have been produced over the years in which love is the integral theme or the part of the narrative, love has been the most recurring theme in Bollywood movies. No matter how much we deny but these narratives have shaped our understanding of love and unfortunately this has ruined love for our generation. The way we love   today, to an extent is a direct consequence of the misguided ideas propagated in our movies.  Theory of Romanticism So, to understand how Bollywood rui...

Difference between plot and story Let me tell you an extremely simple story, "The king died and then the queen died" let's take a look at another story "The king died and then the queen died because of grief" . The difference between the two stories is, former on is just some events placed in a timeline but the latter is a story with a plot, it consists of a cause and that drives the plot of the story, here GRIEF  is the plot that drives the story. But it's not just the plot that drives the story, its characters also play a fundamental role in the advancement of the story. So, here's the big question, what is more important in a story, plot or its characters? Different people hold a different opinion about the issue, for instance, Robert Mckee says that at the heart of the storytelling, both plot and character are one and the same. On the other hand, Martin Scorsese says that people often forget the plot of the movie and remember the character in far gr...