Archive for the 'approach' Category
A major turn came in my life after I recently developed addiction for smoking. So I need to explain it in a bit more detail, so I thought of posting about it in parts and make it a series.
The first part explains about my point of view towards smoking and smokers before I started smoking.
No one in my family had ever smoked at least since I am seeing them around. It was quite obvious to develop a taboo image about smoking habits based on the family environment. When I was a kid my father used to tell me that when he was a kid and when he asked his dad for a beedi (tobacco rolled in a tobacco leaf, a kind of cigarette) how his dad beat him for that.
With the time I started to learn more about bad effects of smoking and developed even more clear picture about smoking in my mind. More over than just this, smoking seemed to me like a “slow suicide”, committing a suicide is considered as crime in law but this slow suicide is not. Well precisely slow killing is supposed to be a crime but then smoking is an exception.
I guess now it must would have got a bit clear, how much I used to hate smoking.
When I was in 10th standard one of my friend tried making me smoke and told me, one should try everything in his life, at least once. It made quite a sense to me but I was scared of pain in throat I might feel for the first time after smoking. So he told me to just take the smoke in my mouth and release it. I did that, well there was nothing great about it as I wasn’t taking any smoke inside. He asked me to try taking it inside but I refused. Later may be after several weeks I took one cigarette once again but dint take any smoke inside again, so I couldn’t find any fun in doing that so never tried it again. Even being the fact how much I hated smoking the only and the only reason for trying smoking were his words that one should try everything at least once in life.
That was then but now I know that there is no point trying something just for the sake, that others are doing it too.
As far as smokers are concerned, if I was traveling in a three wheeler (a major mode of public commute in Delhi) and if the driver would start smoking then I would ask him throw it away or else I would get down. And not just that I would at least ask the driver a few things like if he is married, if he has any kids and finally tell him to quit smoking. I did used to get very strange response from them but it really dint matter to me anyways.
While in social circle I never used to mind turning my face on other side, taking a step away and sometimes even go away if a person with me would start smoking. I think the reason for this was the mental block I developed within myself about passive smoking and may be the disliking for smoking was getting turned into disliking for smokers as well.
I still remember the evening when I was traveling in a bus and passing by my first company I ever worked with, I saw a very old friend of mine standing in front of the office and in some time I noticed her holding a cigarette burning in her hand and then in a few seconds smoking from it. At first I was shocked and then in next few minutes I changed my point of view for her from a sweet, decent, friendly girl to a BLANK PAGE, I dint know what should I think about it, I never ever thought I would see her like that. We were childhood friends and I had the same impression of the same old friend I had years ago as after we moved to a new house we never met each other again.
The questions that came into my mind was, can anyone get changed so much over a period of time and under any circumstances.
One day I was with a friend of mine sitting at Basant Lok Complex (One of the most high class hang out places in Delhi) out side “Passion My Cup of Tea”, sipping our tea and just opposite to it there is a disco called RPM. There were several girls coming out of the disc and several of them going inside. Most of the girls we could see there were smoking. I asked my friend that what do these girls get out of smoking, then she replied, most of them are not even smoking, if you see carefully then they don’t inhale any smoke and just throw it away as soon as they take it in there mouth.
After that I noticed those girls and I was surprised to see what she said was absolutely correct. Now it was quite clear that its not just the addiction of smoking but addiction for looking cool and addiction for looking part of high class that is adding to the numbers or smoking addicts every day. In fact I guess that the most biggest reason for teenagers getting addicted to smoking is that they find other teenagers who smoke very COOL and tries to become like them!!
Note: I wanted to add few pictures but I am not adding them due to the fact that this page may be accessed by non smokers and in any way I don’t want to promote smoking.
This post is tagged based on the tags for entire series, so few tags may not be relevant for this post.

I am really glad that I am sharing this with you. From several years I have a hobby or a habit you may say of collecting bills. My friends have always asked me this and even at times made fun of it by saying what are you going to do with these bills, if tomorrow we fight then will you ask for our share and I always used to smile at it.
I developed this habit when I dint had any camera of my own and always wanted to treasure the happy moments spend with my friends and those who I loved. So I thought that I sud start collecting bills when ever I will spend some time with my friends, well bills are something that you can get even at places where you cannot take a camera along, like in movie halls.
May it be movies, having dinner, travelling, gifts or anything, it was a habit now. I always enjoyed it. Initially I started with a small diary in which I used to keep these bills but over a period of time I had to move them to a bigger place.
It even has my first wallet that I ever had.
So now I am really glad to have this treasure of mine that might not cost anything to others but is priceless for me.
All my memories with those who are still with me and for those who had to part their ways all I want to say is I will always remember them.
Few of the most dangerous enemies of humans are anger, anxiety, expectations and curiosity. It is very important for us to get hold of them before they start controlling us.
Anger or frustration are result of access availability of energy within us. When we are not utilizing our energy efficiently it has to come out in one form or another. Anger tends to be the most easiest way of releasing energy hence we usually get rid of excess energy through anger.
As it is really hard to fully utilize our energy all the times, hence most of the times we end up getting angry or frustrated about things around. Another way of controlling the energy level within us is to reduce the level of energy.
To bring down energy level in me or in a way to punish myself for choosing a way that is destructive for me myself and for others around I had decided to fast and stay hungry every time I will get angry or get frustrated. It might not be a correct way to handle this but something needs to be done in order to control to avoid any problems in future.
And I believe that by doing this, it will remind me of staying hungry and thirsty every time I will get angry or frustrated about anything.
While I am writing this post I have already been hungry and thirsty for more than 18 hours and it may continue up to 24 hours. My definition of fasting is not that you don’t eat any food but eat all the fruits and drink lot of health drinks. When I am fasting then I am really fasting, nothing to eat, nothing to drink.
I hope that soon I will be able to come up with some other ways to handle other most biggest enemies of mine and of the human kind.
There are times when I find my self powerless and helpless. There are boundaries around that I am not able to cross even when I am willing to. So much needs to be done and there are so many who are looking towards me as someone in a better position then what they are but all I am able to do is turn my face away and just feel guilty of not being able to do anything. No one in this world is born with a responsibility and actually responsibility is something that can only be take when you find your self responsible for it or answerable.
With a limited point of view the responsibilities are restricted to a radius but the question that arises is when we will be able to come out of this limited point of view and start feeling our self responsible to the extent of horizon.
Its easy to earn money, yes it is, its easy to live a happily, yes it is, its easy to live for your self and its not hard to live for others or is it. This small feeling, this thought, this approach is missing from most of our lives.
Why are we scared of losing something that is already getting lost by every second and why are
we trying to preserve something that we are not sure for how long we can hold it.
There is a great saying that, live the life as it is the last moment to live. When we hear this the first thing that would come to our minds would be something that can give us joy, enjoyment, happiness. By the way who defined joy, who defined enjoyment, the answer is quite blunt we don’t know who.
Its quite easy to drink your life as if you are drinking a bottle of beer with every moment we live, may be that is what we call enjoyment, may be that is what gives us happiness. Consider people like Mother Teressa or Mahatma Gandhi, were they from some all different world or from some other planet. Why did they have different meaning for enjoyment, a different meaning of happiness, a different way to celebrate and every moment they lived as if every moment was last moment of their life.
We party and we enjoy, do we ever do it all alone, no I don’t think so. The day we will realise that enjoyment is not in our happiness but in sharing it with others and especially with those who really need it, our would will be a better place to live.
This is something that we not just need to think upon but act upon and the best part is we are not depended on any external things that are not in our control say for an example our governments.
I am not a great person who would have already attained this level in life but really aspire for it and I am trying for it.
Remember friends…
“Trying to be is the first step to be”
-Aditya Raj
My recent post talks about truth and now again I am writing about it. Yesterday I went to Church with a friend of mine and after that I went to his place. There we watched Da Vinci Code together and quite obviously it raised several questions in my mind.
His father is an education counsellor and is just a right person to talk and look for answers. One of the things stated by him really surprised me and helped me understand a fact that most of us have been ignoring, that is “Truth is exclusive”, which means that if anything relating to something is true then anything else is not, for example if I am a boy then definitely I am not a girl, if it is day outside then it cannot be night. More importantly all of us have developed an attitude and believe that truth is not exclusive. We have stopped repenting from things that are wrong, we are loosing our own opinion and building an opinion that suit others.
Truth is exclusive and it is a universal fact that is also an elementary principle for leading a good life.