naveenkumarchandra

[naveenkumarchandra]

[naveenkumarchandra]

[naveenkumarchandra]

ज़िंदगी

ज़िंदगी की महफ़िल में,
मैं चुप सा एक गीत हूँ।
हँसी के शोर में दबा,
अश्क़ों की तहरीर हूँ।

वो कहते हैं — "खुश रहो!"
मैं मुस्कुराता हूँ,
पर दिल के वीराने में
चुपचाप मिटता चला जाता हूँ।

Life

In the gathering of life,
I am a silent song.
Buried under the noise of laughter,
I am the story of unshed tears.

They say — "Be happy!"
And I smile,
But in the wastelands of my heart,
I quietly disappear.

Pyaasa- An Existential Analysis and Critique.

Pyaasa, a 1957 Hindi film directed by and starring Guru Dutt — considered one of the masterpieces of Indian cinema, isn't just a social critique; at its heart, it's a deeply existential film.

Vijay’s (the protagonist’s) journey is classic existentialism at show— a man seeking meaning in a world that is indifferent, even hostile, to authenticity and vulnerability. He craves acknowledgment not for fame or riches, but for the truth he feels inside him. And society, obsessed with superficiality and success, has no place for him — until they think he’s dead and can profit from his "legacy."

Pyaasa was a very early popular portrayal of the existential philosophy on the large screen, not just in India but in the world, very few examples of a similar work exist. The movie dealt with almost all major themes of existential thought and philosophy, such as:

* Alienation: Vijay, an isolated soul, isolated from his family, society, even from the woman he once loved.

* Absurdity: The idea that meaning is manufactured by a corrupt system, and genuine feeling or beauty is dismissed unless it fits into the marketable norm, beautifully shown in the struggle of the protagonist to get his poems published, same poems which later come to be celebrated once they become more marketable.

* Authenticity vs. Bad Faith: Vijay ultimately rejects society's hollow validation at the end — he refuses to live a lie just for fame. This is a very Sartrean move: living "authentically" even at the cost of material comforts. While the character does show tinges of “the stranger” by Camus, it also has a Sartrean streak in a Kafkaesque world.

* Search for Meaning: Not in external success, but in remaining true to oneself, even in despair.

The scene where Vijay sings "Yeh Duniya Agar Mil Bhi Jaaye Toh Kya Hai" onstage — lit starkly, surrounded by vultures disguised as well-wishers — might be one of the most powerful cinematic expressions of existential despair and rebellion ever filmed, not just in Indian cinema but surely across the globe, anywhere.

Vijay in Pyaasa: An Early Existential Hero of Indian Popular Culture

The Forgotten Existentialist of Indian Popular Culture:

In the forgotten alleys of popular memory, long before existentialism became a casual term thrown around in modern discourse, there existed a character who embodied it with a rawness and sincerity that has perhaps never been replicated since. Vijay, the protagonist of Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa, remains one of the earliest reflections of an individual stumbling upon the most profound truth of existence — that life, in its essence, is meaningless, absurd, and indifferent to human suffering.

Post-independence India was a nation just waking up to dreams of prosperity, driven by hope, by ambition, by a future bathed in light. But amidst this almost manufactured optimism, Vijay stood as an anomaly. He was not a rebel in the classical sense; he was not fighting institutions with guns or manifestos. He was a poet who realised — far too early and far too clearly — that society does not merely ignore the sensitive, the vulnerable, the seekers of truth; it actively destroys them. His poetry, a medium once celebrated as a soul’s highest expression, was now reduced to a commodity or worse, a nuisance.

Unlike characters of the later “angry young man” archetype who externalised their disillusionment into violent resistance, Vijay’s rebellion was quieter, deeper, and therefore more dangerous. His was the existential rebellion — the refusal to participate in a lie. Offered belated fame and acceptance by a world that had spat him out when he was vulnerable, he chose anonymity, obscurity, and the integrity of his soul over material victory. He chose not to belong.

Society’s response to Vijay mirrors how modern systems — corporations, governments, and culture industries — co-opt tragedy, manufacture positivity, and offer the illusion of meaning while gutting authentic feeling. Just as today's world teaches broken people that suffering is merely a “state of mind” and demands that they constantly display happiness to remain acceptable, Vijay’s society demanded he sell his pain only once it could be turned into profit.

In many ways, Vijay was a man who felt in a world that increasingly forbade feeling — a world that preferred celebration over mourning, spectacle over sincerity. He was a threat, not because he sought to destroy the world, but because he saw it as it truly was, without the filters of hope or delusion.

Vijay, then, was not merely a poet or a failed lover. He was perhaps India's first cinematic prophet of despair — a man who stood at the crossroads of history and saw the future rushing toward him: a future where authenticity would be criminal, where sadness would be censored, where to suffer openly would be seen as the ultimate betrayal of societal progress.

And just like that, without war, without a revolution, without a headline — a man chose truth over comfort, and walked silently into oblivion.

Vijay in the Age of Manufactured Happiness:

In a future not far from now, where governments no longer need violence to control their people but only the constant, blinding light of forced happiness, Vijay would have been an outlaw from birth. Not because he broke laws, but because he felt — deeply, achingly — in a world where feeling was treason.

In this society, where despair is classified as a contagious disease, where sadness is labeled as a crime against "public morale," Vijay would find himself cornered from the start. His poetry, once merely ignored, would now be banned as subversive material. His every word would be scanned for "negative sentiment markers," his every movement monitored for signs of grief or melancholy.

In this world, Vijay’s alienation would no longer be invisible. It would be detected, catalogued, and punished.

He would wander through crowds smiling into their phones, uploading endless proof of their happiness. He would see holograms of motivational speakers preaching that pain is a myth, that sadness is a weakness, that "gratitude" is the only acceptable human emotion. Therapy would no longer be a space for healing but a compulsory reprogramming: sadness diagnosed as a form of antisocial behavior, requiring correction.

In such a world, Vijay would become a ghost long before death. Stripped of language, stripped of community, stripped of the right even to mourn, he would try — desperately — to suppress the ache inside him. He would learn to smile blankly, to nod at the slogans, to chant the hymns of positivity. But somewhere, beneath the enforced calm of his face, a quiet rebellion would build.

Unlike others who forgot their pain and turned into perfect citizens, Vijay would remember. His memory itself would become an act of defiance. And perhaps one night, hidden in a ruined bookstore, he would find an old, banned poem — his own or someone else’s — whispering that once, long ago, it was permissible to feel.

He would not lead a revolution. He would not gather followers.
He would simply refuse to heal.

In a world where only happiness was allowed, Vijay would become something far more dangerous than a rebel: a man who mourned.

ख़ुशियों के सौदागर

मुस्कान के नकाब ओढ़े,
हमने सदियों का मातम पिया।
ख़ुशियों के सौदागरों के शहर में,
गमों क��� व्यापार किया ।

अब जब ज़ख़्म बोलेंगे,
सन्नाटा चीख़ेगा,
तब देखना —
कैसे बिकेगी यह नक़ली रोशनी।

English translation (free):

Wearing the mask of smiles,
We drank centuries of mourning.
In the cities of happiness merchants,
We traded in sorrow.

But when the wounds start to speak,
And the silence begins to scream,
Then watch —
How their fake lights will be sold for nothing.

[naveenkumarchandra]

WHY ALGEBRA FAILS LIFE.

Any equation has a set of variables and a set of constants. Knowing the equation, the value of the constants, and inputting one or more variables (depending upon how many of them are there), we are mostly able to get to others by one or more sets of values, basic algebra. The problem is that when we start thinking that it is us who by sheer knowledge of the equation and its components, control the outcome.

For eg, if I desire an outcome of F, unilaterally, in F= GmM/r2, knowing the value of “F” I need and having with myself “G”, “m” and “r”, I might very well be able to get “M”. But, what is to be noted here is, the force, F is pre-determined, and though one controls the value of m and r, the value of “M” is not in ones control but what one gets to from the equation. Now, one might know what value of “M” would be needed but that doesn’t necessarily mean that this value would be available at one’s disposal.

It might be, as a matter of fact, at one’s disposal when it comes to most things but when it comes to emotions, feelings, people, relationships, family, it’s not. Running after perfection (a desired value of F), you might feel I have put in the desired values of the variables I control and now just an input of one more variable and I’d get to the desired value of F, forgetting that it’s possible that the last variable in that value might not be available at anyone’s disposal. It is thus much better to focus not on a pre-determined value of F and running after it but on just the variables at hand and taking the outcome so gotten and working with it and at the same time working on how we can come to a mutually agreeable value of F and not one which is decided unilaterally or how we can increase either the known variables in value and importance and how we can decrease the unknown ones in value.

Equations with people have a life, they aren’t lifeless like the ones we scribble on paper to solve, the outcome in these equations is also, in most cases, dependant upon not just the variables but also the environment the equations are functioning in. To apply an objective way of thinking to a very subjective aspect of life can be very problematic and emotionally exhausting to say the least. To expect “results” and “outcomes” as desired after putting in a lot of “effort”, while understandable and natural, it is unfair, as even one variable which is not in one’s control is enough for the entire calculation to go haywire.

Another issue with a mechanical approach towards relationship is to discount the fact that living beings though to an extent programmable still possess a way of evolving on their own and aren’t always going to just plainly accept all inputs in all equations at all times. They will change, so will their expectations, their realities, their values and their desired results from various expectations which would in turn guide their own life. Thus, it is naive to say the least to expect that one can run relationships like a program on their computers. Humans don’t function like this and our desire of control, perfection, predictability makes us treat our relationships & people as plain machine-like beings. This never ends well.

[naveenkumarchandra]

A Message from a Senior.

Recently I got a chance to revisit and relive all the wonderful memories, of the years spent at easily the single most important place of my life, our beloved institution, IIT Roorkee.

This also gave me a chance to meet some wonderful juniors, very enthusiastic, very energetic and very optimistic, something which we seniors lack. It was very refreshing indeed.

Yet, amidst all the optimism, I also witnessed a line of stress and anxiety running through most conversations, it was perhaps natural for them to be, and perhaps we too used to be the same and like it so happens all the time, looking at things retrospectively brings in a bias and we tend to be more forgiving of our own times. Yet, I felt this and so this message.

All of you are very young, very energetic, very talented and indeed very responsible and thus the stress too must be coming from the reality of your times. The issue though remains this, being at IIT Roorkee, one need not focus on anything else but one thing, to become the best version of themselves and to instil leadership abilities in them, because remember, you would be expected to lead no matter where you go, public or private sector, you would be required to take the lead and guide others.

I would not lie and say that we weren’t stressed in our college days and didn’t bother about things that bother you but experience teaches us and thus I am trying to pass on my experience. One thing which served me really well was trying a variety of things first hand, things which really piqued my interest and things which were appealing to me and were not just in fashion or were being taken up by everyone else. I tried start-ups, working for seniors and then building a couple of my own, probably the best decision I ever took as they taught me more than any book. I tried coding, because it’s very empowering and makes you future ready. I tried research in my core subject as well. All of these activities, not only showed me various directions to take but also various dimensions of myself. Finally when I did decide to go for civil services, it was a sound decision taken by conscious knowledge gathering about all things which appealed to me.

Apart from this, what did bother me was how first years and second years were under a lot of stress regarding their career and jobs. While some amount of stress helps, undue stress and anxiety and that too at a stage where you are supposed to enjoy yourself the most and experiment as much as possible, makes me a little worried. You are at a place where you have in front of you the best of the best, facilities, people, environment, utilise this experience and experiment, fail as much as you can and learn.

It’s not exaggeration when I say that the guy with one of the lowest CGPAs (he had exactly 5.0) in our entire batch is more successful and yes happier than almost everyone in the entire batch, a guy who was written off by most and had his degree extended by one year is now in Foreign Service, a person who decided to skip placements and prepare for Civil services without any coaching or help, a decision for which he was mocked, is happily serving in the IAS (having cleared the exam in 1st attempt), a person who decided to go into his core in his first year itself is still working there and is now one of the foremost young stars in the field.

No one has the right or the authority to tell you that if you don’t do this or that you’ll be left behind. It’s you who decide. No need to participate in any rat race, no need to pursue programming if computers don’t appeal to you, no need to look for random internships if you don’t like the field or the sector, no need for you to leave your core subject if that’s what you wish to do and just because you’ve been told that your core subject is not the future. The only thing you need to do is learn as much as possible about different things, enjoy life & live each and every moment. Trust me, you’d do well in life, in time, career, money, comfort, will all fall in place but this time, in the institute would remain a missed opportunity and a huge regret.

Wishing all of you the best. Rock it!!

Naveen- 2015 batch

[naveenkumarchandra]

Health and Fitness: A Personal Journey.

Hello everyone, I hope all of your are doing well. Today we will be talking about health and fitness, focusing on the working professionals and students. I have also released this article as a podcast episode for those who wish to listen and prefer that mode. Now, let’s begin.

As far back as I can remember, I was always an athletic kid, into multiple sports right from early childhood. I used to play outside till very late in the evening and I used to play in whatever small breaks we could get in school. The same was true for college as well, the maximum amount of time I spend was on the football field for sure. But, while I was very athletic I was also severely underweight for my height and age. In college third year, I weighed 54 Kgs, the right weight for me then was around 10 Kgs more than my weight. I was underweight, of course I was also suffering from lack of multiple vital nutrients like Vitamin D, C, Iron etc. It was then that I decided I needed to take care of the issue and I started my fitness journey. But back then, I was a college student, life was very chilled out, no pressure, no stress, with friends and it was relatively easier. I am not saying college life doesn’t have any stress, but it is still easier to manage while you are a student. For working professionals though, it is a completely different challenge, to ensure that you workout and also eat healthy is an uphill task and I know it as recently I restarted my fitness journey after a long break of 3 years. Back in college, after starting on this path, I did well, I gained weight and muscles, and by the time I passed out, I was 71 Kgs, perfect for my body, my height and age. I continued working out after passing out, all the while I was preparing for UPSC, I was working out daily, in fact my whole preparation and schedule of the same was built around my gym timings and it was the best decision I made during my preparation. Actually my fitness jounreny had a very important and crucial role to play in my UPSC preparation, let me tell you an instance which paved way for my preparation. So, it was after second year and I was home and it was the beginning when I was starting to think, only think of UPSC as a possibility, so I told my father. He was of course happy but he also knew how incredibly unpredictable and luck based exam it is so he was cautious and he knew that ever since I went to IIT I was perhaps not that much into studying daily for hours and it won’t be easy so he didn’t show much enthusiasm and I also dropped the idea since it looked he wasn’t on board as such. I went back to college and it was third year and I started working out, when I went back home, time, after a couch of months, results and changes have already started to show and I had gained a few Kgs and muscles as well. When my father saw me, as he came back from office, I was in the hall, he saw me from a distance, didn’t see my face but he didn’t, for a second recognise me, when he did, his eyes lit up. Many years later, after my selection, he told me, it was this moment when he thought that if I can workout and change my health and body with such dedication, I can surely do anything and of course UPSC, I was smart he knew that and now he knew I was dedicated again.

I used to go to the gym very early, around 5 in the morning and I used to workout for 1.5 hours and after everything I used to sit and study for a few hours and then used to take a break for a small nap. This kept me fresh and energised throughout the day and this also kept me fit. The result was while most aspirants gain weight during preparation, I was at my best fitness level when I got selected. I arrived in service at my ideal weight and muscle composition. This is when I stopped working out, once I reached the academy, I couldn’t continue and I don’t have any excuse, I should’ve. But the break which I thought would last a few days, in fact lasted 3 years. This is how human brain works and this is how life works, you feel you are in control and before you know it, you ave lost it all beyond a pint where you feel its salvageable. Now, this is around 4 months back. It’s not that I never tried to get back to working out, in fact I did a few times but each time I couldn’t continue for some or the other reason, the most important being of course the laziness of thinking I am already in good enough shape and I don’t need to workout so much. But it was not true, I wasn’t in fact in that great a shape and yes, I needed to hit the gym urgently and also to take control of my diet. It hit me hard around January last week of this year when suddenly I started noticing that I was edging closer to entering the severely overweight or obese category, I didn’t look that but I weighed that for sure, my weight was around 78-79 Kgs in that period, around 8-9 KGs overweight and I was also starting to feel bad and uncomfortable in my own skin. Thats when one fine day I decided okay, enough is enough, this time I will go and I will stick to it and everything else will have to work around my heath and well being, everything else, including my work. It only sounds a bug deal, in reality, it isn’t, I will show you how. The word “priority” is on of the most misused and overused word and people who claim to have their health and fitness as their priority rarely do, when you have it as your priority, what it means is that everything comes second. Your work around your daily fitness regime and you fit everything around it. That is the most basic thing to do and it is also not as tough as it sounds.

I would now talk about how to go about your journey, now, many of you might already be intermediate or a few months into their journeys so you might have already done a bit of it but still, most of the listeners, I would assume know little to nothing. But before I start, let me knock out the biggest lie ever told, “I don’t have time”. Now, I don’t know how anyone who watches every single movie that is released on any platform and every single trending or other wise TV series, one who watches all IPL matches, one who watches and scrolls reels for hours on end and can’t even eat food without first deciding what to watch on Netflix say these words, which is true for most people I know. It is never the lack of time but what you feel your time is best suited for. You can’t have this excuse if you are sitting in front of Netflix for hours everyday or sleeping at 2-3 in the night acting time online on some social media or watching random videos somewhere. You have time, you need to make a choice, that whether your health actually comes first or you only like to say that it does.

1- Let us begin, first thing that you need to do is to know what your body is like, know your body and its condition, trust me it is all worth it, it will be the solid foundation on which everything would be built. So, first thing you need to do is to prepare a chart with the following information:

1- Age

2- Sex

3- Height

4- Body Weight

5- BMI

6- Body Fat Percentage

7- Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR and Total Daily Energy Expenditure or TDEE*

8- Photos of your body, front and sides.

*Relation of TDEE with BMR: Based on your daily activity status

1- Sedentary (BMR x 1.2): You regularly have to tell Netflix you are still watching.  You don’t intentionally exercise at all.

2- Lightly Active (BMR x 1.375): You casually stroll through your neighbourhood a few times a week. On average, you walk for exercise about 30 minutes a day.

3- Moderately Active (BMR x 1.55): One hour and 45 minutes of walking (for exercise, not going around your house) a day, or 50 minutes of vigorous exercise a day.

4- Very Active (BMR x 1.725)

Now, most of the things as mentioned above are straight forward, let me tell you in brief bout rest, BMI is Body Mass Index and it represents if you are under-weight/over-weight or in the right range for your height and age and sex. Basal Metabolic Rate is the basic amount of calories your body needs to burn to function normally, while TDEE is the total amount of calories your body burns throughout the day including the BMR. The reason why this information is important is that it helps us in planning our diet and workout routine. Every body and individual is different so one needs to understand their bodies and what it needs to proceed. After you have this data, which can be easily calculated at home, though of course fat percentage is more clinical and can only be calculated approximately, it is good enough. Formulas for the same are easily available on the net. Once you’ve done this exercise, which won’t take more than 30 minutes of your time, you can move on to the next step.

2- Next step is to determine what is your goal, this sounds very simple and it is, but most of the people who go to the gym just go and do the regular exercises hoping to achieve their goals Chenin fact different goals require different exercise and diet regimens. For the purpose of this piece, I would assume one goal, which was my goal the second time when I restarted my fitness journey, my goal was to reduce weight and maintain muscles, that is weight loss through fat loss while maintaining muscles as much as possible.

Your goal can be to gain size or weight, which I did in college or your goal can also be to shed kilos and not caring as much about muscle loss or it ca be anything else. Once you are clear on your goal, it is time to move on to the next step.

3- This step is again, very very crucial. We have determined the condition or our body and we have determined our goal. By the way, I am hoping that you are writing all the down. I strongly suggest to maintain a small logbook or notebook or whatever, digital entries but do maintain all records. Now, coming to the main point, in this step we would make a schedule. Its not a whole lot but we would need to find out and know which time would we be going to the gym and what all are we going to eat. Now, as I said earlier, I am going to assume that the goal here is to reduce weight and try to maintain as much muscle as possible. For this Goa, there are two components which we need to see, the first is weight reduction, for this, the key is in having a calorie deficit diet, which means burning more calorie than what we are consuming. For the second part of the goal, that is marinating muscles, the key is strength training o weight training. One thing which will be common to both these parts is our diet, which will help us in reducing weight and also in adding muscles and preventing muscle loss.

Now, for a calorie deficit diet, the initial calculations that we did, where we calculated our BMI, BMR and TDEE would be needed. BMI is needed as a larger guide to see where we stand and where we wish to go, like I was 78+ Kgs when I started and I wanted to go to 70 Kgs and my target was 4 months, that would mean a reduction of 2 Kgs every month, 500 gms every week. This is not a linear progression so don’t worry as results initially won’t be tis straightforward. This is just to illustrate. Now, since my goal was to reduce 8 Kgs and I also didn’t want muscle loss, I had to create a diet which helped me with this. This where the basic work and understand of macronutrients or macros comes into picture, that is Fats, Carbohydrates and Proteins, I would focus on just these three. There are many different things which are said about a healthy or normal composition of these macros where it is said, for example protein, that you should have it in around 1.5 times of your body weight or the ratio for your macros should be 50% carbs, 20% protein and 30% fat, but this ratio won’t work if you are trying to reduce weight. The good part about my goal was that both weight reduction and muscle retainment would require me to cut carbs and add more protein. The ratio which I suggest to people who have the same goal as I did would be 20% carbs, 50% Protein and 30% Fat, you can further decrease carbs and go upto 10% and add fat and protein. The basic is that carbs are to be kept to minimum and fat is to be used as energy source and to burn while working out, this is also the basic of what we know as the keto diet. Few more basics which one needs to avoid as much as possible and when I say, one needs to use this as conservatively as possible, not as much as possible once or twice every few days but once or twice every few weeks, that is, as much as possible, avoid maida, avoid noodles, avoid fried food, avoid fast food, avoid sugar in whatever form apart from natural sugar in fruits, that too eat fruits and avoid juices (you may take watermelon juice), avoid white rice. If you look at this list, it only looks big, it isn’t, most maida items are also most fried and fast food items so if you avoid one, you avoid others, the only real effort here would be in avoiding white rice, which is staple in Indian food across cultures. You have to make some sacrifices. Now, once we know what not to eat, let me come to what all you can eat. For a low carbs and a high protein diet, you need to first fix your protein sources, I will assume non-veg diet but I Willa slo include all veg sources so that veg people can just use the same foods minus the non-veg items. The basic foods to build a high protein and low carb Diet you need are eggs, paneer, soya chunks, chicken, mutton, lentils, chickpeas, nuts, fish and whey protein powder or blend. Now, whey protein is a very important part of your diet since it is not possible to intake the required amount of protein from just regular food sources and whey protein is an absolutely safe, tested and reliable supplement. How you eat them is upto you but you need to ensure that you eat at least 200-300 calories less than your TDEE.

So, a basic day would look like, having 8 boiled egg whites, 4 in the morning and 4 in the evening, which would mean approx 29 gas of protein, in breakfast, along with your 4 eggs, you can have any traditional Indian breakfast but quantity should not be more than one, that is if you have dosa, just one, if you have paratha, just one and the size too , must not be more than 50 gms as this is almost all carbs. Then, for lunch, you can have a big bowl of any daal with some vegetable salad consisting of carrots and cucumbers and other vegetables as per your liking, this would add another 10 gas of protein. You can also have a watermelon juice. This is your lunch, nothing fancy, nothing heavy. Then you have to carry one protein shake to the gym and consume it during workout, another 25 gas of protein, post workout, you will have 4 egg whites and some nuts, nuts will add another 3-4 gas of protein. After this you don’t need to indulge in any evening snack but if you crave a lot, have a protein bar, but be careful, don’t make it a habit as they too are heavy on carbs. For dinner, you can have either roasted chicken, or roasted or plain paneer or soya chunks, no roti or rice, if you really can’t control, have just one roti. Also have some salad. This will add another 75 gms to your protein depending on the source while chicken is almost all protein, paneer is high in fat and carbs and soya is high in carbs. But either way, you won’t be harmed, you can have it but yes be cautious with paneer. You will need to have another protein shake before going to bed, another 25 gms.

You can vary this diet as per your need, goals, availability of foods etc but keys is to maximise protein and minimise carbs and use fat as energy source. This day that I just described above would give you anywhere between 160-180 of protein, between 80-100 gs of carbs and around 40-50 gms of fat. This would mean, proteins would provide you approx 700 calories, carbs would’ve you around 500 and fat would supply another 600, this would be a total of 1800 calories, perfect for a TDEE of 2000.

Now that you have an idea about diet, let’s move on to exercise. Since the goal is to reduce wight and maintain muscle, weight training is very crucial, as it helps retain and add muscle and muscle development. Just the diet would only see weight loss but it would come from both fat and muscle loss. We just need fat loss, so we would need to hit the gym. Also we would need to do both, weight training and also abs/cardio. We would need to workout 5-6 days in a week and for 60-75 minutes minimum, 45-60 minutes of weight training and 15 minutes of cardio/abs. This is to be done daily. What exercises are to be done can easily be found depending on your level as a gym goer, beginner or intermediate. The key of course is consistency. You need to monitor your workouts and your diet, you need to be extremely conscious of what you eat and how much did you actually workout, just going to the gym ,listening to some music and doing some random exercises and chatting isn’t going to help, similarly, following the diet but every other day partying, eating out or having snacks or drinking alcohol too frequently isn’t going to help either. You need one one hand a strict control on what you eat, you also need on the other a strict eye on what to avoid, similar just showing up at the gym is the first step, you need to workout with full focus and dedication, of course have fun but don’t let it ruin the main goal, don’t get distracted and say start taking very long breaks in between sets.

Now, these are three most important steps of your fitness journey. But there are several smaller but very important things you need to keep in mind.

1. Set Realistic Goals: Start by setting realistic health and fitness goals that align with your lifestyle. Understand your limitations and design a plan that suits your time constraints and preferences. Whether it's losing weight, building strength, or increasing energy levels, having clear goals will help you stay motivated and focused. You can have a target of shading 10 Kgs but it can’t be done in 1 month or 2, you need to give yourself a real chance otherwise you would just get disappointed and leave it in between.


2. Incorporate Short Workouts: If time is a constraint, break down your workout sessions into shorter, more manageable intervals throughout the day. A 15-20 minute high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout can be very affective. Look for opportunities to be active during your day, such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator or going for a brisk walk during lunch breaks. But this is for days when you can’t workout normally, don’t make this a habit.


3. Stay Hydrated: Water plays a crucial role in maintaining optimal health and fitness. Stay hydrated throughout the day by drinking an adequate amount of water. Carry a reusable water bottle with you to ensure you have access to water wherever you go. Avoid excessive consumption of sugary beverages and caffeinated drinks, as they can lead to dehydration and affect your energy levels.


4. Practice Mindful Eating: Incorporate mindfulness into your eating habits. Slow down and savor each bite, paying attention to the flavors and textures of your food. This can help you recognize when you're full and prevent overeating. Avoid distractions like watching TV or using electronic devices while eating, as they can lead to mindless snacking and overeating.


5. Get Sufficient Rest: Adequate sleep is crucial for recovery and overall well-being. Aim for 7-8 hours of quality sleep each night. Establish a bedtime routine to promote better sleep, such as avoiding electronic devices before bed and creating a calm and comfortable sleeping environment. Prioritize rest days in your workout schedule to allow your body to recover and prevent burnout.


6. Track Progress and Document it: Ensure that you take pics as you did at the start every 15 days. Also weigh yourself once every week. I would strongly suggest to get one normal weighing scale at home. Maintain and fitness journal is a must.


So, we have come to the end of this piece on health and fitness. Thank you all for reading and take care.


[naveenkumarchandra]

The beauty of Starting-Up.

I remember in my college, around 2012, I & Animesh Chandra had come up with an idea. We had, with a group of friends & some seniors started to delve a lot into startups & were quite deep into the culture by then. We took the idea & brainstormed over it for a few days, chalked out some mind maps, made some sketches and also drew a rough business plan. We named our potential brand (Idea Mutation Labs), In our idealism, we decided to write to some potential investors. Since we knew we’d be able to build our team, we thought to skip a lot of steps and seek funds to go all out aggressively. We wrote to a lot of people, the who’s who in the venture world. We knew that chances of any response were slim, if any. But to our utter joy, a very senior corporate leader, then at Times Internet responded positively. He invited us to talk to him & present him with our idea at his office in Gurgaon. It was such an exciting time for us. We made a PPT & went into his office to talk to him, our shabby college 2nd year selves. He showed a lot of interest but we were way off, he pointed out some mistakes, very obvious now that I think about them but asked us to meet him again if we are able to address them. We were of course disappointed but at the same time, we were very happy. We had just met an industry leader who saw some potential in our idea & gave us time when in fact all we had was just a PPT and a vision. That fact instilled a lot of confidence in us.

Though most people in my personal circle also don’t know about this but this has been a key incident in my life. I want to share this with everyone as I see many people with great ideas and potential are stuck with “what will they think or what if they laugh at us”. I want to say, if you never try, you’ll never know. Also, craziness is crucial, it’s important, it’s indispensable in fact if you wish to make an impact, make a dent.

We were not able to address the issues he raised but we did work on a separate idea (Mad Mills) & we did take it many steps ahead and launched it and it was at that time a very promising venture. It didn’t work out due to some other reasons but I like to believe what we got to learn from our previous experience made us both believe in ourselves even more. That is why I am not afraid of messaging or mailing anyone if I have an idea (messaged very senior officials at Google for a project I did in probation and they responded, messaged very senior officials in GoI and GoWB about it and they responded as well). I also know it for a fact that Animesh has gained so much out of his experience, be it learning photoshop for the first time or the art of drawing a Business Plan.

No matter what your goal is, I strongly advise all to get some startup experience, a couple of years when you are young is ideal.

PS- Find below a poster and our logo of Mad Mills. Like they say, class is permanent.

#experience #startup #startups #startupculture #hustleculture

[naveenkumarchandra]

Why do I read?

Why do I read so much, what is the point ? A question I get asked so often & so much.

Well, there are so many reasons, I’d like to tell a few, I am not at all under any misapprehension of being a genius or even smarter than most of the people, certainly not due to cracking a couple of exams, the more I read, I realise I know so little & how much more there is to know. It is anyway not something I am seeking, an all knowing smartness or genius, I am seeking humility. Then, the sheer magnitude of human knowledge & collective wisdom is beyond anyone’s capacity to absorb but it surely deserves a chance. As you read and try to understand the vastness of the thoughts and ideas you become more and more aware about everything.

I feel, there can’t be any better way to seek satisfaction, the feeling of being content other than by seeking oneself, how do we do that, that is then the question. The first part is to accept that you know nothing & that this is not a zero-sum game, even if you spend some time & put in some effort & end up feeling that you didn’t gain anything, you in fact did.

As I read more, and more stories become a part of me, I realise I become a bit more full. So many wonderful storytellers from across the world, with their tales from their far away lands, transporting me only times to a city struggling with a plague, to a country resisting a coup, to a nation battling its colonial masters, to a family surviving the everyday struggles, to a neighbourhood reeling with racial tensions, all of them, journeys one of which one can perhaps go on once in their lifetime but which I undertake many times every week. This is the power of books & the is the power of reading.

[naveenkumarchandra]

The man with the tin heart.

While he has read about them, heard his friends and workmates talk about them, watched them being referred to in the movies, yet, all his life, as far back as he can remember, he has not once felt what they refer to as emotions. Each time he brings the subject up though, he is silenced, people tell him it’s his overthinking and his constantly taking the simplest of things and examining them in the most grotesque way possible, devoid of any soul, using what they call stainless logic, which in turn they tell him is due to his compulsive need to follow procedures all the time. They are surprised though as to how can someone who is always finding faults is not sad or at least appears unhappy. They tell him that him not feeling these emotions is also an emotion, that he is displaying indifference and being almost sociopathic all the time. This they say are in their own ways extreme emotional responses and thus he is not so abnormal anyway.

He believes them.

What else, he wonders it could be? Maybe these people are right, they are of course. Surely he is not some kind of an exception, all humans are supposed to feel sad, happy, love, hate, anger, anguish and despair and all of rest of the emotions from the long list that he has seen everyone around him so fancifully display over the years. It leaves him questioning himself after each such display, it’s just a plain logical question though, “Why can’t I do any of that?”. It’s not that he doesn’t know anything about them, he is aware of them and can easily recognise them by facial expressions that they bring forth. It’s just that he has not experienced any of it first hand. Not that he remembers if he had. Surely it can’t be some disease, he has seen a few specialists over the years and they have made him undergo almost every test there is to look for some or the other deficiency or defect or mutation but no luck. It is weird in a way that someone can be looking forward of learning that he has a disease after each diagnosis but that’s how it was for him, no luck. He was medically “normal”.

He believes them.

He works in the local government office, he is a clerk. It makes his life easier. Emotions are not something desirable for someone to be working and dealing with a lot of people on a daily basis. It helps when one considers them as just numbers and figures, it helps to look at these figures and leave the rest to rules. It helps to just read the said rules and follow them to the word, blindly. That’s what he thought his job was. So one thing surely was going his way in his life, his job was a perfect fit. He was doing great there, as per his performance reviews, he was meeting all his targets, posting maximum numbers of cases disposed month after month. Though some people did tell him that he does his job as efficiently as he does because he doesn’t consider any case with any empathy at all and takes them as they come, by the rules. This did make him pause a bit but then he saw people lining up at the counter just beside him and being emotionally manipulated and extracted to grant favours. This made him think if in fact being empathetic was so desirable & these people are showing empathy, why are the people lining up crying and howling and shouting and the ones who in fact did look happy were so identical, in their appearances. He did his job mechanically, he was told by his colleagues, but it meant if it was a fit case, he would do it immediately, and if not he’d reject it with the same promptness, which was rarely the case with the so called empathetic employees. He went on time, left on time, took no breaks, and while people did cry in front of him at times, they understood there was nothing that he could’ve technically done about their request. “This is what happens when you are an emotionless robot”, said one of his colleagues. “But you said I do display emotions remember, you told me that I am indifferent”, he replied. “Well maybe you were right to begin with, maybe you do not feel any emotion, may be you are abnormal. I mean why else would you reject the claim of that poor lady, you knew she deserved it and just because she made a small and insignificant error in the filling of the form, you rejected it. You do know that she would now do the entire procedure again?” she said wit visible anger as her face turned slightly reddish. He could see the anger now, he could recognise the cues but had no idea why would someone be angry on him for he did his job as required. “It’s not my job to determine the significance of the error, if it was in fact insignificant, it wouldn’t be an error to begin with”, he said, plainly, as always. “You know what, a lot of people hate you in the office, their reasons are as you would expect, they hate you as you do your job without any expectations, you don’t indulge, that makes the rest of them look like absolute villains. I always liked this about you but at times you turn away from such cases, like this one, and that’s when you give me a reason to hate you as well”, she said in the same tone of now fading anger, perhaps realising it’s of no use. “Well, if people hate me for doing my job, I can’t do anything about it, I would continue doing it”, he replied. “Well, your job needs you to have a heart at times, but then, I guess your heart like your emotions, is made of tin”, she said and walked away. He believed her.

[naveenkumarchandra]

Reality 101: Learning & Growing.

Keeping my head down & working quietly, this has been my motto for the past two years or so, it was not always the case. The past two years have taught me a lot.

There was a time, not long back, I was not dumb either, not that I am now, what I mean is that back then, like now, the decisions that I made were my own, but clearly I wasn’t thinking them through. One of them was on how I took to social media & how I used it. It was surely not coming from a bad place, I was happy & wanted to share that with everyone but while doing so, I was not in fact sharing happiness, I was indirectly contributing to a culture of overwhelming sadness, devoid of any depth, shallow in its core & just outright superficial, needlessly glorifying. When I have had a chance of working on assignments of various degrees in the past few years, I have realised that we do give hope to a lot of people & that is all where our focus should be. In the process of our work, when a lot of people are looking up to us, I feel that the image of a larger than life, omniscient and omnipresent being does more harm than good. I feel it is important that we use the platform for what it is best suited, for us, to educate & inform. Everything is fine, everyone is fine too, to each his own, yes, but that is what I have come to realise after a few years in the service & on the field. Patting myself on the back for every single thing, most of which is routine & in fact doesn’t do a lot in terms of great change is plain selfish, self serving & an outright lie. Rather, I feel it is important to see the bigger picture & talk about that. Social media has made all us very lazy, it has made us shallow, at least it has made us worse in both aspects. I urge all aspirants to just stop wasting their precious time here, not because they should study all the time but what you see here is not the truth, far from it & it corrupts your motives, that’s the worst. I urge all aspiring officers to understand that you are planning to enter a service, to serve others & that’s all, not yourself but others. Keep this is mind. That’s all that matters.

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#random #ias #upsc #motivation

[naveenkumarchandra]

The Real Dilemmas of a Civil Servant.

Not very long ago, I was preparing for UPSC CSE. While preparation, I used to always wonder, how come so many government officers have no empathy at all, what happens to them once the enter services? What is the reason that they can refuse pleas, can deny requests and can ignore tears. I always wondered would I become the same once I entered the service.

The problem with this line of thought can be appreciated in a much better way once someone enters the service and gets to experience how it is on the other side or perhaps gets to read an honest assessment from within, I shall try to write one here, as honest as possible. I am not gonna deny the lack of empathy in a good number of officers, most officers in fact have some issue, they forget that it is the position or the chair or the service that people are respectful of or afraid of and not them and they start feeling that somehow they are above everyone else. But anyway, that’s a topic for some other day. The issue at hand though is that are civil serum fact always that bad.

Whenever someone approaches an officer for any work or help or assistance or anything, in their mind of course, they are absolutely right and justified in asking for what they are asking for. It is not their fault either, it’s basic human nature. Just ask yourself if you have ever cursed someone for doing their duty and blamed them for misusing their powers (when at most what they did was use it well within their right only that you were at the receiving end).

For ex, someone is stopped by a traffic cop on not wearing a helmet and is given a challan, he would then curse the officer for using his power and not trying to understand or listen or not agreeing to just let one go this time or something of that sort. Of course there is another side to it but this and incidents like this too happen universally, with everyone.

It is absolute universal phenomenon, which everyone experiences.

The issue is, if you come to an officer asking for a favour, and he refuses, and you think well how rude of him or that he lacks empathy, you should just ask yourself two questions, first, would you be fine if he favoured someone else and treated you like the rest and second, how would anything function if everyone comes to seek a favour. Of course, there can be and there are emergencies, there are exceptions and these cases must be treated as such and looked at with empathy by the officers, which does not happen a lot and hence the issue but why does it not happen, there is a problem there as well.

The problem is, once someone is treated preferentially, it would surely not end there. Other people would either think that it happened due to some strings being pulled somewhere or perhaps some other quid pro quo was in place. The issue is that even an exception made due to an actual emergency, on purely humanitarian grounds would not go down so well with people other than those who had the emergency and needed help. This is because that most people, other than officers too, lack empathy for their fellow citizens. It’s very easy to notice, just see how many are comfortable with someone cutting a line in a bank citing an emergency, not many. In fact people start saying things like, “What emergency? Even I have emergency, let me go to” or “How do I know you have an emergency” or “I don’t care, there is an emergency at all our homes”, it is very common.

I am not trying to discount for the lack of kindness among the officers but this is a genuine issue. For example, hypothetically, if I am to favour one farmer over other, this one farmer wishes to sell his paddy ahead of others due to an emergency, even though he has a token and he will be able to sell it when his number comes, just like everyone else, but if I do allow him to sell early, the very next day I would have a huge list of applicants citing emergencies, all of which would have at least some measure of truth to them.

Now, if I were to deny the farmers after the first one with the emergency, the rest would point that I did allow one, why did I do that? Did I favour him in return of something or was he someone special or someone powerful or what was the matter, when in fact all that happened was that the person had an emergency where he had a sick wife who needed an operation urgently, each day was important or else she could even die.

Now, if I was to allow all emergencies then any system in place would just collapse and people would start manufacturing emergencies, faking prescriptions and doctor reports and other things, I know how it sounds but it happens, it happened even during COVID travel restrictions when people would go out for nothing, at the peak, roaming around, risking everyone and on being apprehended saying they were out to get medicine when they had no prescriptions, didn’t even know the name of the medicine they were out to get.

It is very easy, again, to say for example why not design a system which takes care of all such cases on a preferential basis and take them first. The problem with this line of reasoning is that the poor farmers for which this MSP is actually announced, all have some or the other issue at their homes. Also, how would one decide what constitutes an emergency and what does not?

So, in practice, on the ground, systems don’t seem to work as efficiently as one might think. The reasons for this is not what is generally thought. You can never design a full proof process but you would eventually want to rely on humans, the point is, in the end, it will boil down to someone, some human would be required to take a decision in cases of exceptions or emergencies.

The reason why I decided to write this is because most comments about civil services and the way officers are, don’t look or appreciate this aspect. While it is not a justification and a lot of what is said is true but I feel it is something to think about. Most officers think on the lines that they can take up each and every case and look into it but with all the other things they have to do, it become more and more tough. Still, personally, I prefer to do this, some prefer to focus more on other things, I deeply care about such exceptions but that doesn’t mean that those who aren’t able to look at each individual cases don’t care.

They are both manageable of course, dealing with individual grievances and big schemes but like all processes, the one which you will put in place to look after such cases, this too, would be open to being manipulated, being exploited and falling short. Nonetheless, I feel very strongly that a process to deal with such cases must be in place in all offices, it generally is there too, an elaborate grievance redressal system is there everywhere but it is needed to be run with a lot of empathy.

When a civil servant gets a request where he can in fact help but then he is afraid of getting more such requests and how many will he help, he is absolutely 100% wrong in ignoring the request on this ground. But, the people should also appreciate that when an officer does get this request, one of the reasons why he refuses to treat you preferentially is perhaps the principle of fairness.

That is one of the actual dilemmas of a civil servant, more so someone posted in the field.

[naveenkumarchandra]

In the service of the state.

If you were to ask me what is that one thing which makes the service worth joining, while there are many many things, big and small, but if I were to pick one, I’d say that the responsibility to hear the common man and the power to help him is the most important thing for me. It’s very easy to say “I’ll see” and then forget or ignore or delay or even just refuse later, but then when anyone reaches out to me, anyone, I know that they have perhaps come to me after exhausting all other options, they have come to me hoping that maybe I’ll listen, they have come to me thinking this is where they’ll get some sense of justice. That, this one thing makes everything worth it for me. Every time you help a poor man, every time you correct a wrong long overdue, every time you lift someone up, you reinstall their faith in the system. That is the only thing I tell aspirants now, nothing else, that once they enter the service, never ever become what they hated. I tell them, once they enter the service, enjoy it but remember why they came and from where they came. I tell them, all fame and glamour and followers are of no use & if they can’t use their position to do what they said they’d do once selected, to the interview board then perhaps it would be better not to prepare. Always remember that when you help even a single individual, you help the world become a better place, when you respond, you give them hope. And like the famous dialogue goes, hope is a good thing.

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#ias #service #serviceofthestate #india #upsc #upscmotivation #iasmotivation #jaihind

[naveenkumarchandra]

Re-claim, Re-invent, Re-imagine.

Time, not just one of the most important things, it is, in fact the only thing which actually matters. No matter how you define success, no matter what is the criteria, the successful in their fields have always ensured that they find time for what they want to do and aspire to become.

All of us want to do or achieve a hidden goal, a desire in our hearts which we so want but then we don’t somehow have time for that. I am no different, I have always wanted to learn as much as possible about a variety of fields and topics, a highly diverse set, including but not limited to finance, microeconomics, astrophysics, philosophy, behavioural economics, blockchain, decentralised finance, monetary policy etc. Last year, one fine day I took a step in the direction, I decided to delete all the things which I thought were coming in my way. I deleted all social media apps from my phone, not the accounts, just the apps from my phone. I didn’t renew any of my subscriptions of streaming services (except hotstar, since I love football and follow EPL), I decided to give 1 hour early morning and 1 hour after office to these things.

In a period of 6 months, I was able to take and finish courses In all the disciplines I wanted, it was and is so satisfying. Easily the most productive 6 months since college. I also finished 2 books, one of which is out and another will be out soon.

I have made a firm decision to continue this way of life. I don’t spend more than 20 minutes on internet including social media on any given day. I have also made a conscious effort and developed this habit to not pick my phone when I wake up, or to use it while I am on my bed at the end of the day. All these things save me a lot of time which I generally use to read more. In the past 6 months I have also read one book every 4 days.

The whole point is, time is there always, it’s just that we need to see if we priorities the things which we wish and hope to do over the things which really don’t matter and in fact we are doing only because we have access to them, they add no value. I wish to share this only because I know many many people are facing the same issues, I’d want all of them to take control of their life and their time. I’d be happy to help anyone.

Thanks!

#socialmedia #timemanagement #success #learningforlife #keeplearning #keepgrowing #lifelessons #ias #motivation

[naveenkumarchandra]

Namasthe sir🙏🏻🙏🏻, I have purchased the book (You too can crack upsc cse) written by you. I am very excited to complete the book and start preparing for upsc more effectively!! Thank you sir for this wonderful book🙏🏻 This helps many young upsc cse aspirants. Hoping for more books and thoughts from you sir!! I am a big fan of you sir😇 #inspiration #motivation #guide...

All the best 😊

[naveenkumarchandra]

What makes a good officer?

It is a question, answer to which would seem straightforward but it isn’t. One might say honesty, well of course, but honesty to whom? Is it just that you need to be honest to the service, the staff or is it a broader concept, whereby you are to remain honest to yourself more than anyone else. Some might say devotion to duty is an important thing, true, it is a very important thing, but devotion to duty would first need us to define what duty exactly is, it is very complicated. Then there is integrity, another pillar of the social value system which we have come to recognise as indispensable, well it absolutely is. But more often that not, what looks like a strong pillar is nothing but a rust ridden structure, what looks like a huge tree is nothing but a shallow trunk. So what is it, well all of the above mentioned traits are important, not trying to discount them at all. But it is no secret that secret keeping is not that tough. What I have come to realise as the most important quality of a good officer is if he or she has empathy for the poor. Not to say that the well off don’t need empathy, they do of course but that the poor has nothing else.

In my experience, I find it very saddening that people are almost shocked (in a good and weird way) that someone in my position is actually picking all of their calls or replying to their random WhatsApp queries or meeting every single one who comes to meet as many times as they want to and for as long as they wish. Trust me, time is not an issue.

The issue is that people are afraid of being kind. They are afraid of being perceived as weak if they show emotion and empathise. They are afraid of doing things which are perceived to be not “their job”, which exactly is their job but then anyway.

What is it then the point of this post. The point is this, please be kind to people. More so if you are in a position of privilege or desire to be in one. Listen to them. Try to solve their problems. You can be everything but if you can’t be kind to a stranger who has nothing to offer you in return, what use is anything else that you do. Nothing at all.

[naveenkumarchandra]

Irrationally Mine!

It is indeed wonderful that humans have always had a way about the things they want or want to do or want to see themselves doing in the future. They are always very enthusiastic about these things, their eyes would light up on a mere mention about them and they love to talk about them for hours if given a chance. They are almost arrogantly guarding them too, yes, they are arrogant about the things they are yet to have. It’s not uncommon to have an aspiring candidate feeling unreasonably arrogant about the fact that he or she desires a particular thing, which in fact, in most cases, is also desired by millions of others, most of whom are equally placed. It absolutely amazes me all the time. This arrogance stems from the behaviour which makes one feel that they deserve a thing more than others and in turn they somehow have a higher chance at getting it which leads them to believe that they have a right over that thing. This is the tendency to overestimate ourselves and underestimate others.

It is not very uncommon to find an arrogant aspirant or an arrogant artist, in fact there are too many. Most of them happy to belittle fellow aspirants or artists, they have come to believe that they are the true aspirants and they in fact have a right over the thing they so aspire.

But why is that? They haven’t yet done anything, they are merely dreaming, well maybe not just that, maybe they are working towards it, but so are so many others and no one ever had any full proof way to know how well or bad others are working towards it. Why then this arrogance? This is a very basic human trait. They would, if questioned, how likely are they to gamble all their wealth away would always pick a lesser probability for themselves and a higher for someone else, even when no other data is provided for the other person and when they themselves might have had a gambling issue. This bias is very much at play all the time. We feel we will not fall sick, or at least have a lesser chance at it than others, we feel we will surely succeed and would do better than most others someday soon, we also feel that others won’t make it, even when they seem to be doing the same thing. Rationality is very deceptive.

There is a reason that we are fine with our own issues but judge others and at times openly and vocally over the same. There is a reason why we talk about issues and raise issues and show concern till the same thing knocks on our own door and we behave in the conventional way. There is a reason that all we want to hear praise and confirmation and get defensive the moment we are criticised. There is a reason that we don’t want to grow even when our flaws are pointed out to us and we know we will grow by checking them. The reason behind all of this is the inherent irrationality by which humans behave. Homo Sapiens is not a rational lot.

[naveenkumarchandra]

THE VIDEO GAME.

The last two years have taught me more about life than the two decades that came before it.

I have always been fascinated by the questions which don’t seem to have a definitive answer, the questions which can’t be classified strictly dealing with any one particular subject, questions which are personal and yet they deal with things which would impact everyone, questions which are considered too “big”, questions like “what came before the Big Bang” or “what comes after death” or “Does God exists” or “What is reality”, and not just these seemingly big questions but some questions which don’t seem big but have an equally big audience in that they would again, have an impact on everyone, questions like, “why we keep on pretending for the sake of others” or “why opinion of people who we would never even meet matters” or “why the most important decisions of our lives are almost never ours to make” or “why do we blindly give in to things which we know for sure make no sense” and so many more. The last two years I have given a lot of time not just to the search of answers but also to the ways to reach the answers. I have read so much, so many topics, so many diverse topics that it fascinates me that at the core of our existence it’s these same questions, no matter what you do or read or like or dislike. It’s these very questions which are at the core of everything, human or not, personal or not.

I don’t know but many of you must have felt things which can’t be expressed in the words that language in the technical sense enables us to. Some say that if it is not possible to express it, then it doesn’t matter. I say it’s not. For ex, in search of answers to these questions, I have come to realise that existence of everything else and everyone else but you is more or less like a video game, when you are playing a video game, you have all these characters and all these things and places and events that happen to the character. It’s like a whole world with everything there. But as soon as the player dies, what happens, the world ends as well. The game ends as well. It’s not that end of life if the player, it’s the end of life of the game, it’s always “game over” and not “player over”. Similarly, when you die, the world dies with you. Your world, that you seem to occupy a place in, is the world which no longer exists with your death. You must thus live not just your life, it’s a whole world that lives with you, a version of the whole cosmos exists only for you. The reason why I give this example when I talk about not being able to express what one feels is that at times we do feel if it’s worth it. It surely is worth it, for sure, but one needs to see it from this angle. It’s not worth it if you seek happiness or something like that. It’s worth it if you live. That’s it.

I have struggled to find an answer, it is indeed extremely tough to find one definitive answer to any of these questions. I am not even close but it is incredibly satisfying to be in the search and on the look out. You tend to live more, not longer but more. I am no longer worried about who is traveling more, who has more things, who has more money, who looks better etc. Once you start your journey to lookout for these answers you feel liberated. That’s the key.