Expectation"s"

Dec 07, 2009

This one’s for a close friend who told me I have started looking a lot at the broader global picture and forgotten to look around me. So I thought, why not, mauka bi hai aur dastur bhi..Whatever it means…

So, what’s around us?? People and lots of people. People in the form of friends, family, colleagues and of course strangers, lots of them who cross your path without even letting you know and some who take your attention.

Let’s start with ones whom we know; our friends, family and colleagues who make us laugh and cry innumerous times in a day, who contribute 99% of our life routine. But the other 1% cannot make us laugh or cry or cause any emotional outburst (only if he breaks the rear light of your car).

But the imp question is why only these people are able to create this emotion?? Do you ever feel bad if a stranger does not greet you on the traffic signal, but how about your friend not returning your call or your office colleague not asking you if you wanted a cup of coffee when he/she stood up to get one??

The answer to all of the above is a word which I believe ( and it may be wrong) is “expectation”. It is the one word in the English dictionary which is solely responsible for all the emotions floating around. Just think about it…one morning you wake up and do not know about this word….you will not yell at your mom for preparing the same breakfast, you will not yell at the one driving just ahead of you for breaking the signal, at your office colleague for not asking you coffee, your girlfriend for not talking long enough yesterday night or yourself for not remembering to buy yourself shaving foam which has been over for 3 days now…

A person breaks into an emotional outburst when he does not get what he expects. Now how do these expectations arise, is yet another topic on its own and we will touch upon it later. But yes, when our expectations are not fulfilled, we feel sad and when they are up to the mark or better we fill very happy.

But this is theoretical. If you ask me or yourself, is it possible to take away expectation from our lives, the answer would be a plain “no”. So then why this thought??

Because though it is not possible to entirely wash away the expectations, it is rather important to keep them in control, so as to not hurt yourself and those around you. And you will see that people around you who seem to be rather “cool” about stuff on which you overreact kind of follow this.

So how do these expectations build and what goes after them? An expectation is built over the time by the thing or person reacting or behaving in one particular way. For e.g. if one of your friends who’s always been a fun loving, happy go lucky, chatter box comes to your party and sits in one corner sipping a drink, what would you feel?? Not happy of course. So what made you expect he would behave in a particular way? His past behavior and traits. Similar is the case with everything and everybody surrounding you.

We over a period of time, get so used to certain things and expect them to behave in the same way all the time. Not only others, we expect ourselves also only to behave in a certain manner and when we don’t do that, we question ourselves also, and hear ourselves saying “what’s wrong with you dude, you never talk so much”.

So how do we not behave in one particular way and do we now have to try and behave different every time so as not get into a stereotypic behavior mode, if I may say??

Not really, the trick is not thinking too much before doing something and following your heart right through. If there’s a party going on, and you feel like singing out to everybody, don’t stop and think if it’s “correct” to do so at that particular time; just look for an opportunity and climb the stage and sing your heart out.

I think that by doing so we will achieve 2 things: one, not mould ourselves into one behavioral pattern and even if we do we will be called schizophrenic.

Just kidding, we need not be named into a category.

Take care!!

Dec 6,2009

Hi everybody, today it’s been a long time after I sat down to write like this. But u know, better late than never.

Actually, also today’s a little different in other ways. I actually do not have a huge thing to tell. It’s just small things that have happened over a period of time and they keep crossing my mind again and again and so I thought I better put them on paper( or I may say WinWord) to get away and let the fresh ones come in.

Liberhan report:

To put it very straight I really don’t care about this man or what he did for 17 years writing those 1000 pages.

What I really want to know is, is it really fair on a country like us who has such a large population living below the poverty line ($2 a day, don’t know where World bank got that from, don’t tell me they borrowed it from the BIG A), another huge population who might be just above the poverty line but does not have the basis amenities like shelter and sanitation, and the 3^rd lot who might be “fortunate” enough to have the above two, but are not accessible to education, need to spend such a huge amount of money on a post facto analysis of history. I don’t think so.

What I found funny on that day when there were clashes in the parliament on the leak of the Liberhan report was, the BJP was the one yelling and shouting slogans against the Home Minister asking him for an explanation as to how the report leaked?? I mean, weren’t they the ones who were sought responsible for the entire demolition thing and weren’t they supposed to sit quietly and answer as to what they were thinking when they let that happen. But anyways, whos talking logically anyways.

Anniversary of 26^th Nov 2008: sorry, but I am not going to call it “26/11”.what is this obsession with the west that we start calling dates all that way and btw I don’t think half of these people who call it that know that 9/11 is 11^th Sep and 26/11 is 26^th Nov.neways, that’s not the topic.

I am not against all the candles lit and all the silence observed. Even I did it because we always say a prayer to pay a homage who lost their lives saving ours.

But our larger question should have been what has changed since that date and what is it that will ensure that this does not happen again.

You might come up with answers like we have now equipped our policemen and other Para military forces with better equipment and we exchange intelligence reports with other countries and blah….

I think the RCA ( root cause analysis) is incorrect and we really need to get to the core. It’s not like we don’t know where it’s coming from; it’s just that we are telling ourselves or our govt is telling us “ don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine”.

Everything’s not going to be fine this way; unless and until they take accountability of what is happening and not only that, take stern steps to get rid of them by any stick, this sort of thing cannot be ruled out again; not only on us.(actually they are more vulnerable to it).

Why doesn’t our government understand that Gandhiji died in 1948 and it is not possible to follow his values at every count of life ( of course not at other people’s lives) not when the other party has been taking us for a ride for 50 years now.

I think we got to catch our act fast, talk to them first, but not the way our leaders are talking “ will you pl arrest Hafiz Sayeed?, will you pl file charges against him?” we got to set deadlines, take this matter up with the international bodies and the nations with whom we are trying to sweet up relations and “do nuke deals” and tell them once and for all. Even then if they do not straighten themselves up, it’s time for action. It’s better that 500 people die once in one war than 50 dying every week at 10 different locations and our govt. only reacting but not acting.

The other day on this anniversary date, I was watching Rajdeep Sardesai interviewing Mr. P Chidambaram. On asking him about the Kasab trial and as to when will it get over, I was shocked to hear the reply. The guest said he was not even sure whether Kasab is guilty and should be left over to the court of law. I can understand not sentencing him in front of national television, but what was this “I am not sure” as if answering to Farouk Zakaria on BBC whether he thinks India’s GDP is sustainable. I mean political correctness is good but not all the time..Where is emotional correctness?????

Succession Planning:

All this political unrest in AP got me to think about this. When YSR was around and handling the entire things fine, what was Sonia Gandhi thinking. I know none of us had thought about the unforeseen event that occurred but he was not Bhishma Pitamah whose eternal reign was never going to end.

And there the point comes up..It is always dangerous to have a one man show and have no back up. That is what exactly happened here. And then what they did was set up the oldest guy they could see in the lot as the heir. Would it help??

Surely didn’t help in this case. The TRS is asking for a separate state and are doing it in a violent way and this gentleman, at the helm of affairs calls a meeting of intellectuals to ask them what he should do next?? His MPs are not making things easier for him by behaving in a refractory manner by writing in directly to the Congress President about the matters of the State.

The similar thought came to my mind when I read Ratan Tata’s interview saying he was yet to find a success for his empire..Whoof..Is he serious??

I will send him my resume and you guys can be sure I will surely have a succession plan J

Chao!!!