A good piece of writing -- Chetan Bhagat

Chetan Bhagat has written 3 books (or is it 2), with a very original touch. There are not that many novelists around who can center their work completely in Indian life and Indian situations and come up with an interesting read. Chetan Bhagat seems to be able to do that. Read his books if you get a chance!

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Inaugural Speech for the new batch at the Symbiosis BBA program, Pune -
23rd June, 2008 - By Chetan Bhagat

Good Morning everyone and thank you for giving me this chance to speak
to you. This day is about you. You, who have come to this college,
leaving the comfort of your homes (or in some cases discomfort), to
become something in your life. I am sure you are excited. There are few
days in human life when one is truly elated. The first day in college is
one of them. When you were getting ready today, you felt a tingling in
your stomach. What would the auditorium be like, what would the teachers
be like, who are my new classmates - there is so much to be curious
about. I call this excitement, the spark within you that makes you feel
truly alive today. Today I am going to talk about keeping the spark
shining. Or to put it another way, how to be happy most, if not all the
time.
Where do these sparks start? I think we are born with them. My 3-year
old twin boys have a million sparks. A little Spiderman toy can make
them jump on the bed. They get thrills from creaky swings in the park. A
story from daddy gets them excited. They do a daily countdown for
birthday party ? several months in advance ? just for the day they will
cut their own birthday cake.
I see students like you, and I still see some sparks. But when I see
older people, the spark is difficult to find. That means as we age, the
spark fades. People whose spark has faded too much are dull, dejected,
aimless and bitter. Remember Kareena in the first half of Jab We Met vs
the second half? That is what happens when the spark is lost. So how to
save the spark?
Imagine the spark to be a lamp's flame. The first aspect is nurturing -
to give your spark the fuel, continuously. The second is to guard
against storms.
To nurture, always have goals. It is human nature to strive, improve and
achieve full potential. In fact, that is success. It is what is possible
for you. It isn't any external measure - a certain cost to company pay
package, a particular car or house.
Most of us are from middle class families. To us, having material
landmarks is success and rightly so. When you have grown up where money
constraints force everyday choices, financial freedom is a big
achievement. But it isn't the purpose of life. If that was the case, Mr.
Ambani would not show up for work. Shah Rukh Khan would stay at home and
not dance anymore. Steve Jobs won't be working hard to make a better
iPhone, as he sold Pixar for billions of dollars already. Why do they do
it? What makes them come to work everyday? They do it because it makes
them happy. They do it because it makes them feel alive. Just getting
better from current levels feels good. If you study hard, you can
improve your rank. If you make an effort to interact with people, you
will do better in interviews. If you practice, your cricket will get
better. You may also know that you cannot become Tendulkar, yet. But you
can get to the next level. Striving for that next level is important.
Nature designed with a random set of genes and circumstances in which we
were born. To be happy, we have to accept it and make the most of
nature's design. Are you? Goals will help you do that. I must add, don't
just have career or academic goals. Set goals to give you a balanced,
successful life. I use the word balanced before successful. Balanced
means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good
order.
There is no point of getting a promotion on the day of your breakup.
There is no fun in driving a car if your back hurts. Shopping is not
enjoyable if your mind is full of tensions.
You must have read some quotes - Life is a tough race, it is a marathon
or whatever. No, from what I have seen so far, life is one of those
races in nursery school, where you have to run with a marble in a spoon
kept in your mouth. If the marble falls, there is no point coming first.
Same with life, where health and relationships are the marble. Your
striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you
may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited
and alive, will start to die.
One last thing about nurturing the spark - don't take life seriously.
One of my yoga teachers used to make students laugh during classes. One
student asked him if these jokes would take away something from the yoga
practice. The teacher said - don't be serious, be sincere. This quote
has defined my work ever since. Whether its my writing, my job, my
relationships or any of my goals. I get thousands of opinions on my
writing everyday. There is heaps of praise, there is intense criticism.
If I take it all seriously, how will I write? Or rather, how will I
live? Life is not to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary
here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are
lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500
weekends. Do we really need to get so worked up? It's ok, bunk a few
classes, goof up a few interviews, fall in love. We are people, not
programmed devices.
I've told you three things - reasonable goals, balance and not taking it
too seriously that will nurture the spark. However, there are four
storms in life that will threaten to completely put out the flame. These
must be guarded against. These are disappointment, frustration,
unfairness and loneliness of purpose.
Disappointment will come when your effort does not give you the expected
return. If things don't go as planned or if you face failure. Failure is
extremely difficult to handle, but those that do come out stronger. What
did this failure teach me? is the question you will need to ask. You
will feel miserable. You will want to quit, like I wanted to when nine
publishers rejected my first book. Some IITians kill themselves over low
grades ? how silly is that? But that is how much failure can hurt you.
But it's life. If challenges could always be overcome, they would cease
to be a challenge. And remember - if you are failing at something, that
means you are at your limit or potential. And that's where you want to be.
Disappointment' s cousin is frustration, the second storm. Have you ever
been frustrated? It happens when things are stuck. This is especially
relevant in India . >From traffic jams to getting that job you deserve,
sometimes things take so long that you don't know if you chose the right
goal. After books, I set the goal of writing for Bollywood, as I thought
they needed writers. I am called extremely lucky, but it took me five
years to get close to a release. Frustration saps excitement, and turns
your initial energy into something negative, making you a bitter person.
How did I deal with it? A realistic assessment of the time involved ?
movies take a long time to make even though they are watched quickly,
seeking a certain enjoyment in the process rather than the end result ?
at least I was learning how to write scripts, having a side plan ? I had
my third book to write and even something as simple as pleasurable
distractions in your life - friends, food, travel can help you overcome
it. Remember, nothing is to be taken seriously. Frustration is a sign
somewhere, you took it too seriously.
Unfairness - this is hardest to deal with, but unfortunately that is how
our country works. People with connections, rich dads, beautiful faces,
pedigree find it easier to make it ? not just in Bollywood, but
everywhere. And sometimes it is just plain luck. There are so few
opportunities in India , so many stars need to be aligned for you to make
it happen. Merit and hard work is not always linked to achievement in
the short term, but the long term correlation is high, and ultimately
things do work out. But realize, there will be some people luckier than
you. In fact, to have an opportunity to go to college and understand
this speech in English means you are pretty damm lucky by Indian
standards. Let's be grateful for what we have and get the strength to
accept what we don't. I have so much love from my readers that other
writers cannot even imagine it. However, I don't get literary praise.
It's ok. I don't look like Aishwarya Rai, but I have two boys who I
think are more beautiful than her. It's ok. Don't let unfairness kill
your spark.
Finally, the last point that can kill your spark is isolation. As you
grow older you will realize you are unique. When you are little, all
kids want Ice cream and Spiderman. As you grow older to college, you
still are a lot like your friends. But ten years later and you realize
you are unique. What you want, what you believe in, what makes you feel,
may be different from even the people closest to you. This can create
conflict as your goals may not match with others. . And you may drop
some of them. Basketball captains in college invariably stop playing
basketball by the time they have their second child. They give up
something that meant so much to them. They do it for their family. But
in doing that, the spark dies. Never, ever make that compromise. Love
yourself first, and then others.
There you go. I've told you the four thunderstorms - disappointment,
frustration, unfairness and isolation. You cannot avoid them, as like
the monsoon they will come into your life at regular intervals. You just
need to keep the raincoat handy to not let the spark die.
I welcome you again to the lost wonderful years of your life. If someone
gave me the choice to go back in time, I will surely choose college. But
I also hope that ten years later as well, your eyes will shine the same
way as they do today. That you will Keep the Spark alive, not only
through college, but through the next 2,500 weekends. And I hope not
just you, but my whole country will keep that spark alive, as we really
need it now more than any moment in history. And there is something cool
about saying - I come from the land of a billion sparks.

From the Hindu's coverage of the swearing in of new ministers for the new Union Government (May 23rd):

"The duo accepted the offer without much ado but quietly left midway between the proceedings"
(talking about Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi party).
You would leave "midway in the proceedings", not "midway between the proceedings".

Interesting tidbit from the same article: Sharad Pawar, A.K.Antony and P.Chidambaram were among those who took the oath using the words "solemnly affirm" instead of "in the name of God". Typically that means that they are atheists (ie. they don't believe in the existence of God).

Question for you: Why did Manmohan Singh not stand for election this time too. Is it appropriate in a democracy for the Prime Minister to avoid being elected by the people and sneak in through the Rajya Sabha?

Some advertising copy with pretty unique English mistakes!

Something's --> Some things

Add's --> Adds

Multiply's --> Multiplies

Grammer, grammer

From the Deccan Herald: "Its not true that I've had a cosmetic surgery". Does not need the 'a'. You have surgery not 'a surgery'. Not able to explain why :-), but surgery doesn't have a singular.

Here's something amusing that happened on a recent trip. At the Hyderabad airport, I asked an employee "Which way to the exit?". He pointed in front of him and said "Straightaway sir" !!!!

The Hindu #fail !

The Hindu newspaper has a photo today with a caption: "Honouring a great".
That's not correct!

You honour great men or women or persons (or great dogs!), but not 'a great'.

By the way - the #fail in the title is becoming a popular internet slang to express the idea of something negative, something that did not work.

A visit to the railway reservation counter

I went to the booking counter for Indian Railways at Indiranagar last weekend. Three cheers for the online booking facility of Indian Railways which means that I rarely have to visit the booking counter any more. I had to do it recently because I wanted to ensure that my mother-in-law gets a lower berth, something that the online site does not do so well.

There were two interesting things I noticed there. One was an ad for Agarbatties that said: "Pray for confirmed tickets with Cycle Pure Agarbatties". And a further statement underneath "Everyone has a reason to pray". Funny, no? They had found a humourous way to get their message across that plays on the anxieties of people sitting in queue waiting to buy a rail ticket. Further the message is very customized for the location -- it would not work anywhere else. That is nice to see -- most of the time people would just reuse their standard ad that they use elsewhere rather that create a new ad for a particular use.



The other thing was a notice board, of the sort where you have individual letters, that you can put together in order to make whatever message you want to convey. Here is the message I saw there:


ADVANCE BOOK NGSIARE OPEN UPTO 04-07-2009

It took me a little while to figure out what they were trying to convey. Want to give it a shot ?

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Photo from isado on Flickr. I don't know if there is a standard English spelling for for agarbatties, but the version I used is in use on many websites. The English word for agarbatties is 'incense sticks'. Did you know that incense sticks are popular in several south asian and south east asian countries too. Click through on the photo above to see lots of pictures of incense sticks. And there is a site called agarbatties.com ; quite funny, it has this rock music playing in the background that seems inappropriate for an idea like agarbatties.

A challenge!

One of my good friends Arvind Narayanan (who regretfully is not very cordial when he comments on my blogs) has seriously questioned the approach of this blog, and my qualifications to write it. Below is my response. I think I am justified in not publishing any more of his challenges, going forward as I don't want to spoil the tone of this blog, it is meant to be a non-controversial light space, and accessible to young people. (That, as far as I can detect right now, there are no young people or otherwise visiting this blog, other than my friends, does not discourage me, since I like doing this!)

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Dude, I think you cannot just have this casual approach to teaching English. I think you are causing more harm than good.

You cannot give a low quality answer like "this sounds more smooth" and hope to get away with it. A child might accept your answer - and thats why you need to be much more responsible before dispensing advise. Your answers have got to be more precise and accurate.


The time lyrics are so out of place in this blog it is beyond irritating.

I would suggest you stop this blog or acquire real expertise in grammar that goes beyond "this sounds right."
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I would count myself as someone very familiar with English. If I needed to justify these I would proffer a few somewhat offbeat items of proof: my english teacher at high school said that I 'would be an asset to any english department in the country', I've always scored well in english exams including a full score on the English GRE. I've read a ton of books, and written a lot through blogs (though I would be the first to admit that I don't proofread very much on the blogs). I would say I have evolved a nice sense of the language and I can critique quite well a piece of writing.
I was just being honest in responding to some of the questions as this 'sounds right' or 'sounds smooth'. The following are relevant:
-- it is quite possible, and I pointed that out, that the person who set the questions was incompetent or intended for more than one construction to be valid. In that case, indeed what I said makes sense. In fact in a phone conversation Arvind was actually not able to refute any of the statements I made, and since he's no mean wordsmith I rest my case.
-- English is highly idiosyncratic language and the rules have infinite exceptions. Besides usage is evolving rapidly, and usage varies from country to country. So indeed there are many areas where there is ambiguity and its the right thing to indicate the ambiguity rather than proffer a false clarity.

Regarding posting the lyrics of the song "Time" ; its a highly individual choice. I do this blog and it will reflect my likes and dislikes. Time is indeed a somewhat adult themed song but I feel that most of the time children don't suffer from being introduced to some serious ideas early. Don't misinterpret that statement - childhood is indeed a delicate time and harsh treatment or cruelty or other such indeed is terrible and can and should be a cognizable offence. But if a blog out on the web which no one is forced to visit (and which at this point no one visits!), which parents can censor; if this blog occasionally gets serious, why should anyone have a problem with that?

Okay - topic closed. Arvind -- your posts here will henceforth be moderated, not responded to.