Radisson and Hilton - two more hotel chains that are close to my heart now

After Hyatt [link 1] [link 2], it's now the turn of Radisson [my wedding] and Hilton [my honeymoon, in three different Hilton hotels in Istanbul] to get added to the list of hotel chains that are, and will probably forever remain close to my heart.

 

How I would like myself to be, for her and for us

I'm aware that what I'm going to enlist is going to be a tall order. Tall order not to follow, but to follow always. Nonetheless, keeping these self-commandments in front of myself will help me to give myself to her as a husband whom she is supremely proud of, whom she treasures more than anyone else, and whose presence makes her feel all the time that she has been immensely bestowed and lucky to have him in her life. In no particular order:

1. Be her best friend first, and the other things later.
2. Never disclose her secrets to anyone. Be the one in whom she can confide with full confidence.
3. Give her your time and attention. Works are important no doubt, but she is more important.
4. Respect her parents and her siblings. Don't be like those guys who treat their wives' families with disdain and disregard.
5. Address her respectfully, using the word aap. Most guys address their wives using terms such as tu, or idhar aa; terms that I don't think I can use for my wife. She is the other half of your mind and body and is your treasure. You make or break her respect, both in front of her and in front of others. Never disrespect her.
6. Always think and act in her favor, and in our favor. Even if sometimes this means taking tough decisions, some of which she may not like or agree with. Help her understand how and why your actions and decisions will always be unconditionally in our favor.
7. Do not shout on her, unless it's really required. She's a tender flower in your life.
8. Duly accommodate her preferences, her likings and her interests. If she likes a particular dish which you do not like, order it too. If she likes romantic movies, watch these with her. If there are songs that she loves but you do not, play those too in your car.
9. Show her the world. The world is too large and too beautiful a place.
10. When with her, walk slowly, because she walks slower than me [learnt 1-Jun-15, 2-Jun-15].
11. Do not unnecessarily cut/interrupt what she is saying, or get into the habit of tokna. Let her speak her heart to you without any restrain!
12. Many husbands criticize their wives or gossip about them with their friends. Stay clear of this bad practice. Uphold your wife's respect everywhere, and never gossip about her. If you want to coach or criticize or guide her, do it directly with her, and not with others.
13. Do not proclaim to her your beliefs about your own personality. These beliefs might not be true, but if proclaimed, will probably cause her to alter her natural behavior towards you in order to "compensate" for the characteristics/qualities about yourself that you've told to her. Be the way you are, and let her get to know and understand you naturally.
14. Your word should have a meaning and a value. When you say something to her, like when you say "I'll do xyz", you should mean it ["walk the talk"]. Let her be confident that when you tell her something, you mean it. And don't forget, she remembers all your "I'll do xyz" statements :)
15. Recognize the fact that just like me, she too can at least sometimes be genuinely occupied and may not, at that moment, be able to give me her undivided attention, but this doesn't mean that she doesn't want to. Remember all those infinite times that she gives you all her attention, care and time. Give her space to be occupied at least sometimes.
16. If she accidentally does something that's embarrassing to her [such things, like belching/burping and many more, invariably happen occasionally], try to minimize her embarrassment. Do not explicitly or unnecessarily discuss that/those embarrassing moment/moments. Almost as if nothing happened, as if you didn't notice anything, so that she can feel easy.
17. Be her always-strong man. Do not engage in unnecessary complaining/grumbling about cold, heat, tiredness, weather, etc. Be her force whom she can always look up to with confidence.
18. Respect the place where she worked [Deutsche Bank, Ldh. branch]. Since your bank accounts are with the same bank and branch, uphold the honor of the place where she worked by excelling in business. 
19. Be careful about how you balance your relation with your mother and your wife. Always attempt to maintain harmony between your mother and your wife. Never let either of the two down. Don't take sides either.
20. More to come...

That day in 2010 when Deutsche Bank suggested that I open my bank account in HDFC or ICICI

It was probably August or September of 2010, and I was only 24 years old. I needed a good savings account plus a credit card in order to make payment for the GMAT. I already had a savings account with The Royal Bank of Scotland [RBS], but my branch was in Noida, so I naturally wanted an account in Ludhiana itself. I believe in using products and services that are modern and high on features and technology, so I went to Deutsche Bank to open a savings account. I don't know why [maybe because I was dressed casually like a student], but after listening to my requirement, the bank guy suggested that I go to banks like HDFC or ICICI to open an account. I was not only baffled, I also felt insulted and angry. While walking out of the branch, I thought, one day I'll surely open an account in this bank and avenge this insult.

 

Over 4 years later, now we have no less than four bank accounts with Deutsche Bank's Ludhiana branch [the only branch in Punjab], including both business and savings accounts. Today they treat us like VIPs, unaware that we've shifted to them from the same banks like HDFC and ICICI to which they had directed me back in 2010.

 

#RSDONE

Modi's tears are fake; Modi bowing down to Parliament is fake; Modi is a shrewd politician

Modi's first and foremost objective is to polish his own image on the world stage. India and Indians come later.

The muscular grunt of my Skoda Rapid's 1.6 TDI engine

People usually prefer cars that are silent, and that accelerate without the cars' engines making much "noise" or vibration. However, there are people - like me - who absolutely love the mighty grunt of a powerful engine. I experience such a feeling these days when I press the accelerator pedal on my new Skoda Rapid on a highway, and let the 1.6 TDI engine unleash its power.

I've done the same on our Honda City, but the City is a more chic car, more silent, with a more "refined" engine, so it doesn't produce much sound on acceleration. On the other hand, the Rapid is more manly, and when it begins to accelerate, its turbocharged diesel engine lets out a particular sound as well as a slight vibration in the steering column that I absolutely love.

It feels like the engine is a beast, like there is brute power inside it waiting to be set free, like you can feel the diesel igniting inside the cylinders. Okay, at 1.6 liter it is not as big as the more luxurious sedans, but it is still quite good for my taste.

People expect you to be like the majority, else they start bugging you for not being like them

Some days back, I was talking on phone to one of my school-time friends. She [jokingly] asked me about my posts on FB. She asked - "What kind of posts do you keep posting on FB? FB is for posting your own photos, and photos of you having fun with your friends. If you want to write about your thoughts and your opinions, why don't you write them on your blog?".

I was dumbstruck, even though I knew that she was kidding [we've been friends for so long that there is no room for judgment]. I thought, wow, so now people already have some sort of guidelines and rules for what FB is for and what it isn't for, what is appropriate for posting on FB and what should be reserved for one's blog. She's my good friend, but I didn't like the implicit suggestion that I stop posting my ideas, my opinions and my thoughts on FB, and that I instead start posting what a majority of "everyone else" posts - photos of one having fun, photos with friends, or a plain selfie.

I wonder why are people orthodox about expecting others around them to act and behave the way a majority of others do, and more importantly, why do they believe that something is "not right" if someone around them acts and behaves in a different [even if harmless] manner?

Today a similar thing happened. I posted a post appreciating the looks of a Panasonic digital camera whose design I like, and a guy who was my senior at Grail Research commented that my age cannot be judged from my posts, and that I remain nostalgic most of the time. What does he want to imply? I love to write, the way several people do, and I also love to think, and that I happen to write on FB - that's where most of the readers are - shouldn't be an issue to anyone, because if someone doesn't like me or my personality or my posts, he or she can feel free to click the Unfriend button and extinguish me from their digital world in a microsecond, just the way I extinguished this guy and two others from my digital world today.

The responsibility of the workforce family before the actual family

Traditionally, in India, it is said that a guy becomes responsible when he gets married, when he is now responsible to and has to take care of his wife, and particularly when he becomes a father, as he is now responsible for his child. It is his family, it is said, that makes a man out of a boy, and converts a free-flying young guy into a mature, responsible family man.

 

Because of my family business, I've partially experienced this feeling of responsibility even without having gotten married. For several months, it's me who has been responsible for distributing monthly salaries and other benefits to our employees [regular workforce, contract workers, and staff].

 

And at the start of every month, the employees start giving that expecting look to me, as if hinting to me that they're looking forward to receiving their salaries soon. Being answerable to them for timely disbursement of their salaries, I feel an immense sense of responsibility towards them. Although this sense of responsibility cannot be compared to the extent one would feel for one's own family, it is still enough to instill in a person - in this case me - a feeling that I am about more than just myself. That there are dozens of individuals whose stomachs get filled if I do good and profitable work on a daily basis.

 

And that's how I've partially become a responsible person, or so I think, as a result of my own business.

The omnipresent "shaadi" message is almost a torture - people need to be more mature

It had been less than a week since I returned home after completing MBA. My bags were still unpacked. I could still feel and smell the fragrance of Singapore, and I was missing my days at NUS a lot [I still do], when I was popped the shaadi question by my parents that December morning.

Wow, I thought, it's been less than a week and my mother seems all too eager to get me married. Anyway, I told my mother that day that I am not yet mentally prepared/ready for shaadi, and that I will myself tell her - in a couple of months - when I am ready.

It has been a couple of months since then, most likely exactly 11 months, and during these months the samaaj has been literally torturing me with the shaadi proposal. Relatives, distant relatives, neighbors, friends, nephews, nieces, cousins, bhabhis, uncles, aunties, business associates, pandits, matchmakers, and so many others have unstoppably been contacting us with proposals, coercing, and questioning. Wow, why can't they just understand - when they've been told already - that I will say yes when my mind and my heart says yes? Why can't they stop gossiping about my impending wedding at every family gathering? Why can't they just stop asking me the same question - when are you getting married?

People really need to respect others' views. I will of course get married, but when my mind tells me that I am ready. I am in no hurry to catch any train, and no flight will be missed if I wait for several months more.

Even Google, Yahoo, etc., have started showing me endless ads of matrimony websites!

Update [May'15]: The image below, created in PowerPoint, is related to a comment on this post.

At the last stages of his life... (hopefully not)

The Emergency room is dark and silent. It's a little cold these days in Ludhiana, and the temperature inside the Emergency room is cool. Faint sound of a few cars passing on the outside road can be heard every few minutes. It's 1:25 AM and it's the festival of Diwali today, the biggest festival in my country. A few firecrackers burst outside every few minutes.

In front of me on the hospital bed is an old man, at the last stages of his life (hopefully not). His name is Sh. Sita Ram, and he is my dear grandfather. The L&T Medical pulse oximeter beeps faster than the clock ticks. His pulse fluctuates between 85 and 90, and the blood oxygen level fluctuates between 96-97%.

He was unconscious in his bed today morning, and that's when we realized that something is really wrong. When I looked at his unconscious face today morning, a strange sense of philosophical and spiritual sadness dawned upon me. The sadness grew when my uncle told that Sh. Sita Ram, his father, during his youth, used to dive into the river Ganga on one bank and used to swim to the other bank.

I looked at this 90 year old man's still face, covered with white stubble, and the thought that this man used to rage and rumble half a century back gave me an eerie uneasiness. The world was so different back then. My country India was so different. I wasn't even born. It was his time, his era back then, just like today it's my time and my era.

Time is an unstoppable force. An agent of change. A cleansing agent that weeds out the old and brings in fresh life. It's an agent that no human has ever been able to avoid, from Alexander to Hitler.

For a moment, I will make a tiny wish that the feeble old man, my dear grandfather, regain his consciousness. That he look at me again and recognize me as Rishabh, as he always had. But I don't know. I can wish though. Deep inside I know that the hope is little.

I started writing this page on my phone inside the quiet Emergency room and completed it on my computer.

Sinusoidal Mood

A short poem I wrote...

Background photo credit: "I Saw the Sine"
http://powerofpi.deviantart.com/art/I-Saw-the-Sine-184973491