The homeless

You see me everywhere, in India, in Asia, in Africa, in America, in Persia. I am ubiquitous. For the sin which I never committed, I endure all the pains. I spring to life, knowing nothing, aware of nobody, culpable of nothing; still the pain haunts me. My life cycle is just birth sans mirth and loss sans life. I just come into the world like any one of you, but my parting the world is horrible; my life you would have never thought in your remotest horror dreams.
My apartment is just a cardboard fitted and my New York is my slum. The places you loath to enter are my living spaces. I run and play and pleasure in places where you spit and dump. You shall squint at the sight of me and your mouth shall fire out expletives. You bathe and I gulp that down into my abdomen aware of the chemicals and very much aware it is infected with your crumbs. The left outs you throw are those I indulge with all the force I can to fill my malnourished stomach. You can’t stomach viewing it but that is what my stomach is filled for my endurance. Do I have an option? Do I have a reason? Do I have a case? Do I have a preference?
You travel in all your uber cool automotives, gas guzzling, raising the sun shades, ignoring me and my mates running around in the traffic signals. You shun at the very sight of seeing me, blanketing the slender bodies carrying your genes as if peeping at me shall itself ruin your generations for a billion years. Your vehicle you travel guzzles and pollutes this place more than what you think I make to your vehicle by just touching it.
You are all over bliss when you see your toddler maturing of age and turning things around. You buy him and her and them the things they ask, the things they don’t ask, the things they break, the things they don’t break, the things they use, the things they don’t use, the things they love, the things they hate. Do I have a choice? For my life is full of choices with just the NOTs. I don’t ask, for I don’t get one to use and break.
You speak in your Vertu, I don’t speak at all; you pocket a Louis Vuitton wallet, I don’t have a pocket at all. You eat in plush eateries while we clean your spoons and forks with bare hands soaked with detergents, nails stained with the toxicity of it. You drape a French fashion house, I don’t have a worn out trouser to put on. You adorn your abode with several twinkling tubes, I run for oil to light the only lamp for my thatched home and at times in the platforms. You scream at the sight of a pest and I live alongside their nest.
You jog to lose your fat, I scamper to get the most substandard to fill my mouth. You vaccinate to out the flu; I vacillate between the chasms of death, a string so delicate I can fall either side. You comprise a very little of this world and I comprise the majority, yet you are neck deep in wealth and I am still counting pennies.
Beware! I can be you anytime, anyplace, anyhow, but you can’t turn me; you turn, your doom and death is instant.
I am the HOMELESS.

The sandwich

The chairs in the hall are not comfortable. The AC is too high. There is no variety in the high tea you provide. Sandwiches or uthappam’s always!!

Why do we complain so much? Why do we grumble?

Do you remember? One month back, during the first meeting of this year, we sweated it out in another hall in the same floor because the AC was not effective there. How many of you appreciated the comfort of this hall at that moment? How many?

Do we recognize the value of things only when we don’t have it? How many of us appreciate and praise things around us?

These questions take me to my childhood. There was a time I used to travel to school by public transport and had to run all the way to catch the bus at 7.30. I complained about the overcrowded and less frequent buses without knowing that there were children who walked barefooted to schools far away from their homes.

Further, being a day scholar in school and college, I had never been on my own, every meal was served on my plate right on time and I was choosy! I would love to have fried dishes but grumbled about many other! In my first job I was put in a place were there was no good food! That day I realized how mom’s food was a blessing everyday and how I had forgotten to appreciate it. When I was back home, my mom was surprised to see me eat everything that was served on my plate without a word.

When we are blessed with the same things everyday, we stop noticing them,

When we stop noticing, we quit appreciating.

When we quit appreciating, we stop thanking.

When we stop thanking, we start complaining!!

While I was complainer who stopped thanking and got the wake up call, there are another set of complainers who are called prisoners of situation.

There once was a construction worker who had a certain complaining habit. Here is how the story goes.

Monday at noon he opened his lunch bag and saw a sandwich. He ate that for Lunch.

On Tuesday at noon, he opened his lunch bag again and saw another sandwich. He was a bit annoyed but he ate it.

On Wednesday at noon guess what happened. He saw the same sandwich again. Now he began to complain. “Another  Sandwich!!!”

Thursday came and once again he screamed “Another Sandwich, Another Sandwich if I see this thing again tomorrow I may have to kill myself!”

Friday the same thing happened and as he kept screaming “A Sandwich, another Sandwich!” one of his coworkers said “Hey, why don’t you tell your wife to stop packing all these Sandwiches for you.”

His reply was ” Hey you leave my wife out of this! You leave my wife out of this! I pack my own lunch!!!!”

Some may say that no one could be that stupid yet many times we are like that man.

You’re probably saying to yourself there is no way you can be that dumb.

How many people today keep complaining about their present situation and they are doing absolutely nothing about it. They are just like that man. Some people keep complaining about their jobs but they aren’t even sending out a resume to get another one. Some people keep complaining about their teachers who can’t seem to teach well but they aren’t even looking to get some extra lessons to help them.

Exquisite is not going to take you anywhere. We create our own sandwich in our lives and if we don’t do anything about it, it will remain with us for the rest of our lives.

Ladies and gentlemen, strive to change what can be changed while you praise and appreciate what you already have.


As a wise man said,

“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, we learned a little and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so let us be thankful”

-Aashish

(Winning speech on 3rd feb 2013, Chennai speakers forum)

Why Toastmasters?

  Every time I attended a large gathering, the large crowd never threatened me, but the presenter never failed to scare me either. Yes, I was scared that he would call me onto the stage to speak. But more than that, I felt his failure would affect me; I wanted him to succeed, I cringed whenever he made a slight grammatical error or unnecessary usage in his speech. I didn’t know the reason for such a feeling until I came to Chennai Speakers Forum (CSF). Every member of the audience wants the speaker to be successful, they are waiting to hear a wonderful story, they are waiting to be entertained, and they are waiting for another inspiration. What a great lesson to improve one’s confidence!

  At CSF every meeting has at least one person defying all the odds and coming on top. At CSF, with each failure on stage you are closer to success.Members, struck with brain numbing quietness in the middle of their speech are not so uncommon. So are instances of such members turning it around and making it big within a short span. Imagine the hours of practice they have put in. It makes you believe that with practice and patience, anyone can achieve anything in this world. Inspirational !, is too small a word to describe such a feeling.

  This is just the tip of the Toastmasters iceberg. In a shrinking world where communication is turning out be the key factor differentiator. There is no other group that caters to improving communication skills by putting you in a real world situation. Rather than letting you rote and then forget. Its more like jumping into the swimming pool and then reading a book, "how on swimming with a bucket of water in your bathroom". I’m glad I joined Toastmasters. I’m there to get inspired every week and there has not been a week that i have not got inspired.

-Nijil