Some experiences you never forget

I have always heard that there are certain experiences in your life that brings about a change in you. Well this blog article is about my recent Sattal Trip and my experience with a girl there.The article is not gonna be as interesting as previous one because that was a dream and this is something which was real and reality is most of the times not as beautiful as dreams.The girl was not someone whome I used to like or dream of and will not be the one whome I will like in future but it was the experience which I loved.


The Sattal trip camp was a 3 day program of around 30 people. There were series of events including swimming, kayaking, trekking and rock climbing.  One event was blind-fold trekking.It was a couple event in which you were supposed to trek a steep route 3 kms long blindfolded with the other person helping you out throughout the way.During the way he/she also has to talk about herself non-stop and you have to simply listen to her and remain quite.After covering half of the distance the partners have to switch their positions.The one who was blinfolded earlier will now support and talk about himself  and the other person will now be blindfolded and will remain quite and listen.


I was paired with a girl whome I always visualized as too modern hippee kind of a girl and she was nowhere in my liking list. For me it was a difficult event because I have never spoken 20 min continously in my life.....how could I speak 20 min continously about myself that too to a stranger.For the first half she was blindfolded and I had to take care of her. We started and I started talking about random things.At very first I had told her not to expect me to speak for so long as I have nothing to talk about.At times I used to be silent while walking because I couldn't figure out what to speak,but still I kept on speaking and spoke many things which I have never told to anyone. Also i had to take care of that girl as the way was too steep and quite bushy.

In the second half we flipped our positions and and now I was blindfolded.I felt quite relieved as now I dont have to take tension of the route and the bushes. I simply have to close my eyes and listen to her. I thought she will talk about some random crap stuff blah blah... the usual girl talk but to my surprise she started of quite sensibly.She described about herself her aspirations her family and what all she feels. I liked the way she aspires her life to be and how sensibly she things about herself. The way went of as if its just a few metres away. It was the same way which took me more than 40 minutes to climb and was so exhausting that my legs started paining and my head went round n round the previous day.


This activity made be realize how beautiful it is to take care of others and how awesome it is when some one takes care of you and that someone is not your family or the one who is close to you but someone you dont know....you dont even care to know.I always visualized caring some one as a responsibility but now I realized that it reduces the pains in your life too.I have always heard that physical pain is just in your mind and this experience actually made me realize that this is infact true. Also how quickly we make impression about people even without knowing them.Did I started liking her???No!!! not at all she will still be a girl I will prefer to stay away from. But yes now I have started respecting her.How perceptions change just with 20 minutes of simple listening.....and to some extent now i have started respecting relationships.

Encounter with a girl

It was my usual home trip to Chandigarh on a weekend. Usually Friday evenings are very congested and Metros are full during office hours.Travel time in metros are the most boring ones.A closed box packed with people with metro staff announcing the arrival of station after every half a minute is how u can define a journey in a metro train and after the introduction of so called Ladies coach we guys can't even see single girls there because those who enter the so called general coaches are usually with some guy and at times in such a offending position that 90 percent of the people cover up there whole journey enjoying viewing them.I always have a feeling that public display of affection is more to attract attention than to shower love.

Anyways that day was different. Just as I boarded the metro from Noida I saw a girl in my coach. Though there were many girls (none of them is single :D) in the coach but she was different. Reason she was so so beautiful. Her golden shining long hair and glowing skin were so awesome that I felt like talking to her. Many guys were standing next to her and anyone could be her bf so I dropped the idea and prefer staring her rather than talking to her.Stations passed by but neither she talked to anyone nor did I thought of talking to her.

Just as the metro was about to reach Rajiv Chowk she came to me and told me that she is completely new to the city and wants to go to ISBT Kashmeri Gate and if I could guide her to the right metro.I inquired where she wants to go and to my surprise she was also going to Chandigarh. I told her that I am also going there and she can come with me. Well I have booked my ticket to Chandigarh from Kalka Mail but going with a girl there will be an experience that i would love to have. I don't even know whether she will go with me or maybe there is some one who is waiting for her at ISBT . Anyways I took the risk and decided to go by bus that day.

Well many of you might not know but the metro from Rajiv Chowk to Kashmeri Gate is extremely congested and you have to do lot of dhakka mukki to get in and also inside the metro you have to stand like a statue as you are covered with people all around and u cant even think of moving your hand. Though there is a ladies coach also but apparently that girl didn't knew that and i didn't want to tell her to avoid the risk of getting away from her.Seeing the crowd there, the girl almost kind of fainted and told me that she doesn't think she would be able to board the metro.I told her not to worry and hold my hand and we will somehow be able to manage it.Apparently we did and now we were inside the metro.Well the coach was overcrowded and the girl was standing too close to me with her forehead almost touching my lips.Well truly speaking for any other guy this can be common but for geeks like me who have never been close to a any girl this is something that was very unusual and I felt like been in cloud nine.

We reached Kashmiri Gate and finally to the spot from where we have to catch the bus.Though I prefer going by a normal bus because they drive really fast and are very frequent but that day I thought of going in a Volvo.For a second a thought came in my mind that first i missed my train and now I have to pay bloody 500 bucks for the lady too ( Those who are close to me know that I m a big miser :P ) but that day I was different and the girl was worth it. The funniest part is that I still don't know her name.There was a big queue there but she somehow managed to get the tickets because of her being a girl :).Girls always cry of gender discrimination but they never realized how much benefits they get because of this discrimination.I offered to pay her ticket amount to but she refused (Good for me :D)

Finally we boarded the bus and the journey began. For me the day was turning out to be one of the awesomest day of my life.I asked her name and she told me it was Shubhra. Well not all but few of my close friends know that most of the girls (more than 90%) I ever liked in my life have their names starting with S.I don't know its a mere coincidence or something else.So I thought that it was natural for me to like her :D.We talked about so many things during the journey school days, college days, job days, politics,religion and what not.

I am very reserve kind of person and its was she who was talking endlessly. I was just enjoying looking at her. Finally near Karnal she told me that she was very exhausted and now she wants to sleep. Truly speaking even I was exhausted so once she slept even I also slept.When I opened my eyes I saw myself in my PG room in Noida....Gosh!!! nothing was real and it was just a dream. 

What we can learn from Steve Jobs

Before understanding who he was and how he was different first lets have a look at the company APPLE.While most high-tech firms focus on one or two sectors, Apple does all of them at once. Apple makes its own hardware (i Books and i Macs), it makes the operating system that runs on that hardware (Mac OS X), and it makes programs that run on that operating system (i Tunes, i Movie, Safari Web browser, etc.). It also makes the consumer-electronics devices that connect to all those things (the rapidly multiplying i Pod family), and it runs the online service that furnishes content to those devices (i Tunes Music Store). If you bring together Microsoft, Dell and Sony into one company, you would have something like the diversity of the Apple.

If you go by the market wisdom Apple is doing it all wrong. Its is often said that new and better things arise as a result of freedom and open competition, but Apple is essentially operating its own closed domain.Still Apple has an aura of its own.Reason - only one man can tell Steve Jobs himself. He is one of the technology world's great innovators but not because he's an engineer or a programmer. He doesn't have an M.B.A. either. He doesn't even have a college degree. (He dropped out of Reed College after one semester.) Jobs has a great native sense of design and a knack for hiring geniuses, but above all, what he has is a willingness to be a pain in the neck about what matters most to him.

Though, he is perfectly pleasant to be around, he pays attention to what you're saying, but if he disagrees with it--if, hypothetically, you're maybe supporting the fact that i Macs have all their ports in the back, where they're hard to get at--he'll come storming back and hammer at you until you change your mind or at least shut up.That's how you define supremacy.I hope our PM could take some lessons from him :P.

One reason Apple makes its own hardware and software is that when Jobs goes to the trouble of creating a piece of software, he doesn't want it running on hardware built by a bunch of dudes he doesn't know and can't fire. He wants it on hardware he makes himself. How else can he be sure that every little thing integrates together the way he insists--it should. According to him, if one company makes the software, the other makes the hardware ... It's not working,The innovation can't happen fast enough. The integration isn't seamless enough. No one takes responsibility for the user interface. It's a mess.

But you can't say that is the only way to run a business. Look at Microsoft. Bill Gates focused on operating systems. He didn't worry about hardware. He gave Windows to anybody who could give him a licensing fee, and he let them worry about hardware. Result? He devoured the market and made the biggest killing in the history of killings. Apple kept its Mac operating system on Apple hardware almost exclusively. It may have won a technological victory,but business-wise, he is still behind.

But Jobs doesn't care just about winning. He's willing to lose.He's just not willing to be lame, and that may, increasingly, be his unique approach. The i Pod proved that design and ease of use are at least as important as increased functionality, and the i Tunes Music Store proved that goes for smoothly integrating physical devices with online services too.You may be top of the world in terms of business but for a moral victory, a victory of faith you have to be self sustainable. The world economies who encounter enormous fluctuation one day or the other should learn from this. This is how bureaucrats should focus on development.Its not always that the most profitable nations are the ones who are most appreciated.