WITH LOVE FROM AUS

Tourism Australia has come up with a charming and beautiful film that shows the various aspects of Australia - its architecture, its wild life and so much more.

This new ad, made by M&C Saatchi wants to tell the world that Australia will be waiting with open arms, ready to welcome visitors as soon as normalcy returns. 

Enjoy the wonderfully well shot film and put Australia in your travel plans of the future!

2015: This is How I am avoiding Resolutions

Another year has dawned on us. Phone calls, emails, SMSes, Whatsapp messages wishing each other Happy New Year have been exchanged. 

Now step back and think. What is so special about the New Year? It is just a change of date in the calendar. The sun rose on 1st Jan in the same way as all the other days before that, the weather and the traffic out there is also the same. Even the shows on TV are the same ones!

So then what has changed? The New Year may not change any of these but what a New Year brings with it is something called HOPE. With the advent of the New Year comes a strong sense of optimism. The belief that things will change from here on is what comes to the mind of people. And it is all of these emotions that make one to put together a list of resolutions. Most of them are well aware that they are never able to stick to their resolutions for a pretty long time but yet, year after year, they persist and put together another list, only to get disappointed over the next few days/weeks or months. 

It’s been two years that I have been blogging about how I do not keep any resolutions but rather follow my own model of doing things through the year. The benefit of this model is that there is no disappointment of a resolution breaking. 

So then what are my plans for this year? Am I sticking to the same model or is there a new model that I have developed? I thought a lot about this and then realized that this E Model that I have developed for myself works perfectly for me and at this stage I should not let go of it. Maybe, I should enhance it further, which means retaining a few Es , removing a few and adding a couple of other. Like I had mentioned last year, this E Model is a dynamic model which will keep changing and evolving with each passing year. 

So with that, I once again present my E Model to all of you, with the hope that some of you may also use it and benefit from it:

1. Experience: There are lot of people who like collecting different kinds of things – stamps, coins, match boxes. I like to collect experiences and call myself ‘Collector of Experiences.’ I try and find opportunities to try new things which just make life more exciting and meaningful. At the start of last year, I jumped off a cliff to experience paragliding. Towards the end of the year, I got to experience watching two tennis legends playing live - Roger Federer and Djokovic playing a set against each other at the ITPL. This year also, I plan to try a few new experiences.

2. Exploration: Travel is an important part of my life. One has to have wanderlust in life to truly become an explorer. Travel and reading are the two biggest teachers of life. As long as you have these two teachers in your life, your learning will never stop. One of my personal goals every year is to visit and see atleast three new places. Even when I am travelling for work, I endeavor to check out a few interesting sites of the place that I am visiting. This year will bring its own set of travel diaries. 

3. Extraction: This is a big word. It means absorbing and learning new things either through reading, videos, work, training, etc. Extraction would also mean writing and blogging and extracting thoughts and stories from within. Last year was a slow year for extraction and the plan this year is to rectify that. 

4. Entertainment: All work and no play can make Jack a dull boy. Philosophy of life couldn’t be truer than this. There is so much of content that exists out there – movies, TV Series, YouTube videos, award winning ads. Amongst all the other things that I intend to do in 2015, keeping my entertainment quotient high will be clearly one of the priorities. 

5. Engagement: This is a new E that I am adding to this model. Social media has become an extension of our life and it is something that can’t be escaped. So the best way is to embrace it. But in 2015, I do not want to limit my engagement to the online world. I intend to engage with my friends and families in the offline world too. I will be taking initiatives of catching up with as many people as I possibly can and connecting with their lives once again. 

6. Evolution: This model is incomplete without the addition of Evolution to the model. While I get busy in new experiences and extracting more from the lessons of life, it is also important that I evolve as a person. This evolution has to be mental, physical, financial and intellectual. I would like to see my net worth and balance sheet evolving. I would like to see the log of my running kilometres evolving as well as my acts of empathy and kindness evolving. My relationship with my colleagues and my team should evolve towards a better side. 

Overall, I should evolve as a better human being and the true measure of this will only come from others and their opinion about me rather than my own opinion about myself. 

All of these elements of the E Model are going to be subjective in nature and I will have no way of appraising myself if I do not put down a tracker that is quantifiable and measures how I am doing against each of these elements. So a Tracker has been put in place. 

Before you decide to implement this model in your life, do note that there are two other Es that come as companions for this model – Expenditure and Execution. You cannot win with this model if you do not take the companions along! 

Looking forward to the ‘Exciting’ times ahead in 2015!

Holidays in the Mountains or Holidays by the Sea?

I often hear people asking this question “Do you prefer the mountains or the sea?” and most people also have a response basis what they prefer. I am at a loss of words when posed with such a question. The struggle continues even when this question is posed in another way “Are you a guy who likes the hills or the beaches?” No, not because I cannot make choices! But when it comes to mountains and the sea, I just don’t have a preference or rather I prefer both. My preference for each of the two is dependent on which state of life I am in and what I am going through.

To me, the mountain and the sea both have their own beauty, their own relevance and their own connection with me. I can sit for hours by the sea or with the mountains in front of me. Both the sea and the mountain are great companions to have. I can never feel alone when I have them for company. I can have conversations with both. They both listen to me and then give me some great advice and lessons of life. 

So when do I prefer the sea and what do I learn from the mountains or vice versa?

I like to sit and watch the sea during those phases of my life when I am struggling to achieve something, when things seem impossible and life starts looking difficult. Do you know why?

Because the sea signifies HOPE to me. It inspires and instills a sense of belief. The waves that come towards me do not give up and continue doing their job, despite knowing that after the highs and the lows, they will crash near the shore. Whether they will be high or low is also influenced by external factors like the moon and the wind, but that does not stop them from joining hands and trying to create a symphony of sorts with the way they rise and form a chain from one end of the sea to the other.

Isn’t that like life itself? The end is known but that does not mean that one stops living and doing the things that one wants to do. One should strive to go out there and collaborate with the world to deliver on whatever you have set out to do. 

On the other end of the sea, I notice the horizon. This is where the sun meets the sea every evening. That tells me that the journey is far but the result will be beautiful. It also tells me that what lies ahead is unknown but I will discover that only when I reach there. 

So if the sea is all about hope, what are the mountains about?

The mountains signify to me a SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT. Mountains are places I like to visit when I have succeeded in something I had set to do, when I have accomplished something. This is because when I see the mountain, I see someone standing tall, being admired for its accomplishments and enjoying the fruits of its success. It tells me that once in a while, when a lot of hard work has been done, you need to sit back and enjoy the moment and feel the sense of achievement. The peaks tell me that you will be remembered for your results and not your efforts. 

These are lessons that cannot be learnt by just one trip to the sea or the mountain. Every time that you go there, it gives you a different perspective on life. It doesn’t matter to me whether I am at a place which has a sea or a place which has mountains as both these places make me feel alive!

So the best place for me would be a place that has the mountains as well as the sea. Any recommendation guys?

Mountains in Uttaranchal
Clicked in Dec'2012

The Arabian Sea as seen from Mumbai
Clicked in Aug'2013

A place that is far more beautiful than you can see in this pic.
A combination of mountain and lake (not the sea) - Vevey, Switzerland
Clicked in Apr'2012

The Phone that never Rang

She sat in the balcony with the phone in her hand,

The sun being its cruellest, her arms looked tanned.

Since when had she been sitting here, she had no clue

She had reached a stage that nothing could affect her – heat, cold or flu.


It had been six months since he last came home,

She had no idea where he was – Mumbai, London or Rome.

It came all of a sudden like a bolt of lightning,

Not only was his decision alarming, it was also frightening.


After five years of being together, he wanted to move away.

All her pleading and all her requests did not seem to make him sway.

According to him, the love had gone and his feelings had faded,

But he did not realise that this one decision of his had made her jaded.


Yes they used to argue and they used to fight,

But there were also days that looked perfect, happy and bright.

The day he left her, she thought he would come back as this is just a phase,

After all, they had decided, that together a couple of kids they will raise.


But he never returned, he never came back,

And a few days after that she got her first migraine attack.

After three days of hospitalisation, she finally got released,

But he did not come to see her and she was not at all pleased.


Often these days, she asked herself “Why did this happen, what did I do?”

What puzzled her was that a few days before leaving he had told her “I love you”

She still remembered how he had said once before going to sleep “I can never think of a life without you”

And putting her head on his chest, she had replied “Me too”.


Now it had been six months and she had lost all hope,

It seemed to her as if her life was going down a slope.

Sitting in the balcony, she looked at her phone again, hoping for it to ring or beep,

But that never happened and all she could do was sit there and weep.