Life, Laughter and Everything Else

I know I do not have it in to be a businessman. I am not very good at asking people for money. When I was in secondary school, my parents once bought me a bicycle after much nagging on my part. Like any other boy, the novelty of the bicycle wore off after time and it became a symbol of my wastefulness. The once shiny steel rims looked like it had a new coat of brown paint thanks to the rust and the tires deflated to the point that it needed to be replaced by new ones. At this time, I was surprised one day to see a foreman with his bangla knocking at my door. They enquired about the bike and asked if they could take it if nobody was using it. I sensed a moneymaking opportunity and I told them, "You can take it for $5". That they readily accepted. Later that day, when my parents came back home, I expected much praise from them for displaying some business acumen. Though in life, what you expect is not always what you get. As my father would never cease to remind me "...

The main frustration that I have had with my life in NUS was that I felt I was never really learning anything meaningful or anything that I felt would come useful in my life in the long run. My father has always insisted that NS was a waste of time, but to a certain extent, 2 years spent navigating around a difficult routine and even more difficult people has taught me to stand up for myself, something that can never be emphasised enough. Whereas in NUS, I knew I was never going to be an academic in the future, but here I was, studying 90% of the time. To have some life, I involved myself in CCA's, but still academics have pretty much dominated my life here. Though, every hour spend in front of my books, I have rued the missed opportunity to have spent it on something that I would have learned more from, something that would have added value to me. It is during these moments of pessimism when you need someone to come along and give some meaning to the things you do. For me, I h...

During my first semester in NUS, I took a philosophy module ( Reason and Persuasion), partly out of curiosity and partly out of a budding interest in the subject. The module mainly covered the dialogues of Plato, on his concept of morality, justice etc etc. Soon it became frustratingly obvious to me that philosophy was something that never really provided any answers, but just lead to even more question. The only notable highlight though was halfway through the module, the professor predictably enroached on the ground of religion, on the idea and the purpose behind religion, existence of God and so on. The depth of the discussion soon started to plant doubts about my own attitude towards religion. All these years, despite being an Hindu, my concept of religion was more that of an agnostic. I believed in the existence of the all powerful God but not in the forms that all the religions presented him to me. Religion to me was simply a human creation, a philosophy,a code of conduct. I ...

An uncle of mine once presented me with a motivational book in J1. Called 'You can Win' and written by motivational coach Shiv Kera, it was my first encounter with such a book. Initially I chucked it aside, thinking of how my uncle managed to get away with giving me such a cheap present. But as time drifted and boredom got to me, I dug it out of the dark recesses of my room and started reading it. And for a while I could not stop. It seemed to pinpoint, with rather remarkable accuracy, the mistakes I was making in my life. Somehow, from it I drew inspiration to change my life, to cast aside my reclusive existence and  be more dynamic, more disciplined, more optimistic and more gracious. And by the time I was done with that book, I tried to get my hands on every other such motivational book out there. Anthony Robbins and Dale Carnegie were my new role models. Somehow, everyday I seemed to be on my way up. As a boy gets tired of his new toy car after a while, I soon g...

A very close friend of mine lives in the East. Not that it adds any particular glamour to him, but whenever I requested his presence in my humble abode, which was in the West, distance was always the premier and forgiveable excuse. Then one day he got attached. And more than a year later he broke up. He visited me some time later and I took him for a walk around my neighbourhood. And surprisingly, he knew the place pretty well. Apparently, his girlfriend stayed somewhere near. And even more surprisingly, he visited her quite often. All the way from the East. To the West. To which I asked him "Bro, all this time I called you, you never turned up.A girl called you and you turned up every week." To which he laughed. Maybe it is because I have not been in his shoes, but I do honestly find it quite amusing the things guys do for girls, sometimes at the expense of the friends who have been with him for so long. Things that he would declare to be unthinkable, when his rel...