Simple joys of life...

Today as I was having my morning cuppa tea and looked out of my balcony, what I saw was simply beautiful.

Clear blue sky, with white patches here and there, a mountain showcasing its green blanket, with shades of green some dark and some bright green, and some laced with pristine sunshine, I knew I want to capture this and so did I. Although I could not get the scene as it is since it was shot on my smart phone, and at moments such as this, I always feel, the tinge on not having a DSLR camera :( 

Nevertheless since the pic was good and I wanted to share it with you all, I did some  some cropping of a long shot and tried to give you all a peek into what I saw and captured.

Beautiful Sky

I was happy :)

One of the luxuries of life which I am enjoying as for now is the flat in which I live. It offers both, best of the views (scenic and surroundings) and the breeze which comes in, I never felt the need for an air conditioner.

After soaking in the feeling of liveliness and this beautiful moment, I went on with my usual work. Nowadays it is mostly reading blogs of my fellow bloggers , and replying to comments and emails that I receive.

Around evening I ventured out with my family (brother, mom and aunty). My brother is considering changing his car so as soon as he spotted "Cars24" outlet he stopped by for a quick valuation for his car.

He went in and returned within few minutes only to inform us that it would take about an hour to get the valuations, since they need to inspect the car and take a test drive. With time in hand and nothing much to do me my mom and my aunt decided to take some walk.

The area we were in was a green patch and so walking around turned out to be a pleasant experience.

There I spotted this massive banyan tree in its full glory.

 Its roots hanging downwards all around the tree.

The view was breathtaking and once I again I took out my smart phone to capture the vastness of this banyan tree, which had one of the widest trunk I had not seen in a long time.

It was getting a little warm and my mom looking at the dark and cloudy sky said it seems heavy rain is about to pour in, and within 15 minutes it did.

As much as I love rains and every year in monsoon I want to get drenched in the them, it did not happen for couple of years. Now that I recollect it must have been more than 4 years since I went out and got wet in rains.

I guess it was because either I was indoors and too lazy to get into the elevator, climb down 18 floors and then come back all wet inside the lift, or was it because I am in the car (and I hate to even image sitting all wet inside the car) or out of fear of my mobile phone and wallet getting exposed to rain water was not something I seeked or wanted to do. 

But today none of these mattered, why???

Because my mom and aunt were with me and we were out walking and it was my brothers car which at that moment he was getting valued at Cars24 outlet :)))

So as soon heavy downpour started it gave me the perfect opportunity to have my fun moment. I handed over my wallet and mobile phone to my mom and bid them good bye. I took to walking the road and on the way informed my brother that I will meet them all at home.

Walking in the rain today was such a fun, heavy rain hitting me face, water draining don my forehand and face and then passing by my long unkempt beard and even longer tresses.

I must have walked more than seven kilometers enjoying myself passing by flowing water at some places while through flooded waters here and there. Most of the people were under some sort of shade to avoid getting wet.

I saw only two others enjoying the rains like me on that entire stretch of my walk in the rains today.
Who else they could have been but kids :)

Yes I saw these two friends returning from school all wet and when they looked at me and our eyes met we saw that naughty twinkling shine and we smiled and crossed the path.

It was a lovely day I have had in a long time, how was your day? Did you went out in the rains or there was something more magical happening to you? Do write to me and I would love to read all about it.

Thanks for stopping by and reading. Happy day :)

To each his own...

Have you ever been in a situation where you have been advised not to do a particular thing and yet you ended up doing just the opposite?

I bet we all have, Isn't it?

Wisdom of knowledge is all around us and has been passed onto us from centuries to centuries, generations to generations, and yet seldom do we take it.

At least I have not taken them at their face value, but had to conclude at some point or other and agree to the wise words only when it passed through my personnel experience.

There have been so many instances where-in, either I have advised some and then there were times when I received some.

Over a period of time I have realized that it's best not to offer any advise (even if asked), instead be there as a support for the person who entrusted you with their concern.

I have come across very few people who are wise enough to not commit any mistakes, they believe in learning from others.

But then these same people have missed out on the experience which otherwise could have changed the course of direction of their life.

For instance, I know of this one person who never entered into any relationship neither did he marry, all because he has seen too many unhappy couples either suffering in their respective marriages or had decided to stay separated or got divorced.

Agreed there is no sure shot chances that all the relationships, be a marriage or live-in or the one in the making  will end up as an ideal one, the one which can be referred to as "Marriages made in Heaven!! 

We all wish to live a Happy, joyful and fulfilling life full of smiles, but then how will one know Happiness without experiencing the pain.

Pain and pleasure are like two sides of the same coin, one cannot exist without the other.

[caption id="attachment_398" align="alignnone" width="960"] Image Source - Pixabay[/caption]

We humans as creations, have been blessed with the sensibilities to feel  different kinds of emotions. The experience of all of them is vital for our growth and thus in bringing balance in our life. Isn't that what all the great saints, and yogis and enlightened ones have devoted there whole life to teach us.

But then again, as the title goes "To each his/her Own"...

You need to be an experiencer, only then will you fathom the crux of what our predecessors had passed on to us. Such is the circle of life, it goes on and on...

I am playing my part and doing my bit

I would love to read your comments and thoughts, please write to  me or email me at "nilesharma@gmail.com" and I surely will reply

Stay tuned (follow/ subscribe) for more

Happy Day, Happy Life:)

On a Rainy Day along the creek...

One day when I went to the  creek at Thane for some me time, it started raining and I noticed these gentleman's. They both had their umbrella's on and yet they were standing below this tree and I wondered, why???

May be one is not enough, I thought.

That is how things are nowadays, everyone is so concerned of safety and security that one is not enough, we need layers of them.

Our houses have a door, and a security door. The building/ premises has a security guard and then we also have closed circuit camera's (CCTV) installed in the building premises. Isn't that so?

So what big deal if these guys want an extra layer of protection from rains :)

Do you recollect some vague thought that came to your mind and you wondered, Why so?

Who First ??

Me First!!!

It took me a long time to realize that this is possibly the only approach to embrace life in order to stay happy. 

I may sound selfish here, but then I need to be. 

Who is responsible for your well being and happiness if not you?

So yes, I am selfish

Like many of you, in my earlier days I too was a carefree and merry go lucky person, who found it difficult to say NO and believed in pleasing everyone.

When you have good intentions and wants to help everyone, usually people start taking you for granted. And most of the time the people who take you for ride are your near and dear ones. 

Then comes a time when you reach a point and you say enough is enough. 

All of a sudden you start saying NO more often then YES. People around you find it difficult to understand this new version of you.

As long as you were saying YES and agreed to do things there way things were fine, the moment you started saying NO and went into rebellion mode you became a problem or a threat. 

But then soon you realize that this too is not the perfectly right approach. 

So what is the right approach?

This is the time when you go into self introspection mode ( I did ), if you truly wish to seek the answers to what went wrong. 

Soon you get enlightened and understand that it is not because of others that you suffered, it was all because of you. 

From this point on you take charge of your life and the greatest revelation of this life dawns on you.

And what is this grand revelation???

"Balance"

Yes balance it is.

And this lets you learn and cultivate the art of saying YES when you truly want to say yes, and NO when it is absolute necessary to say so. 

I have learned a lot from mother nature, as even there you see how beautifully life is balanced by nature amongst the five elements viz Fire, Earth, Air, Water & Ether.

Any imbalance any one leads to natural calamity and destruction. That is the way of mother nature to bring back the equilibrium and such is our's. After all we are part of this divine creation.

Ever since I understood the power of this mystical wonder, my life changed and it changed for good :)

One other thing which I have made my life philosophy and have learned from our life cycle which I practice every moment of my existence is in the following order.

First comes "ME" then my "FAMILY" followed by "FRIENDS" and the last one in the order of priority is "WORK"

Why the above?

Well you will agree that only after YOU are born, does your FAMILY becomes relevant, then as you grow FRIENDS come in and then comes the necessity to WORK in order to make money 

to buy comfort and convenience. Isn't it so???

Whether you agree with me or have difference of opinion it does not matter, all that matters is you find your way of creating a balance in your life, 

I would love and appreciate if you take time out to drop your insights and comments.

Happy day, Happy LIFE!!!

"Insecurities and Possessiveness"

Today I am finding it very difficult to find the words for the feelings and emotions that I want to express, yet I can not stop myself from giving up on writing this post. So here it ....

I want to start with a question?

Do you have a spouse or are you in a relationship where one of the spouse is so in-secured and or possessive that he/ she won't let you have relationship outside the family???

I guess there are many....

In arranged marriages it is quite possible that you never got the chance to learn about this aspect of your spouse before your marriage, but I guess in love marriages you spend enough time with your partner in knowing them before you take the plunge.

One of the mistakes which most of the couples in love do is that they think I will change him/ her my way or things will change after the marriage. Does it???

I had an arranged marriage and my would be wife came from a very conservative family. 

I would not say I belonged to a progressive thinking family, but yes my parents were I guess open minded. May be that is the reason we never felt that it was inappropriate to have friends of the opposite sex, because we were never told not to speak or make friends with opposite sex. 

For us friend is a friend male or female doesn't matter as long as you know where to draw the line.

All my life I have had friends from both the sexes coming to my house, but that got significantly reduced after my marriage and I guess you all know why???

After few months into marriage my then wife asked me if I ever had a girlfriend before marriage. The answer was NO because I never had one. It does not mean I did not wanted to have one, it was just that the girl I was interested in was not interested in me :)))) 

The other question she asked me after this was a googly, she asked Will you remarry if I die???

Hard one wasn't it??? 

I tried to dodge that one and tried to change the topic, I mean I never thought about it and here she was hell bent on getting the answer, so after thinking for a while I did answer her.

She got me sweared and wanted an honest answer, which I gave her. 

It was YES, why not? 

I guess this was the first hint she threw about how possessive she was which eventually showed its face after few years into marriage. 

As mentioned already that I had friends from both the genders whom I continued meeting outside of house.

Of these one was my female friend whom I had known since we were kids and hence we gelled well. I would go to the extent of saying she is my soulmate. Before you jump to any conclusions read my post >>>"Soulmate"

She did not approved of my keeping any ties with her, may be because she was single (she still is) and I did not take her advise. 

According to my limited knowledge the foundation of a successful and happy marriage are  based on four key things. To know what they are as per me please also read "Marriages are made in HEAVEN"

Source: https://asriran.info/lists/b/broken-mirror-reflection-wallpaper/

I did not break my friendship to save my marriage. 

I am not seeking any endorsements from you for the decision I took, but yes one thing I wish to ask you all reading this mail is this... Why should any or both the partner expect that there should be no one else in your respective partners life while dating or after marriage? And by this I am not referring or promoting extra marital affair or adultery. 

What harm in having a platonic friend. Is it that difficult a fact to digest or do you belive that such kind of friendship's do not exist? 

If you are possessive as a partner or are in-secured about your relationship it's time you ask some tough questions to yourself and to each other.

Above all if you find it difficult to trust your partner despite all their assurances which actually may be true, then I guess it will be wise of you to "LET GO" off one of these two, your INSECURITIES or your PARTNER

Not all relationships have Happy endings but each one of us is empowered to make a choice of living a Happy life.

How??? go figure out..

I shared my story as I think there are many out there who either had gone through the same experience or are going as you are reading this.

What did you do or what do you think you want or wanted to do? share your thoughts or ask me if you want to know from my insights.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post is solely mine and the sharing is from my personal experience and is not to be construed as a PROFESSIONAL ADVICE 

From My Diary - Choices I made ~ #3

In this series I am sharing the choices I made as far as my professional life goes.

Why I took up my 1st job at the age of 17 is answered in my earlier post  "From My Diary - Choices I made ~ #1 and then why I moved on to my 2nd one and why I left that can be read here >>. "From My Diary - Choices I made ~ #2

The first two jobs is about me as Salaried person.

Here now you will read about my journey of transition from being salaried to becoming Self- employed.

I was brought up in a lower middle class family. No one from my family ever ventured into business, I was the first one to take this path. Naturally every body was worried about me.

I wanted to do something where money was not required as a capital to start something. As it is we did not had enough money, and then asking for help from my parents for business was not something I wanted to do, so I explored my options. I was prepared to do hard work and long hours.

A friend of mine told me about "Life Insurance Corporation of India" (LIC). During those days I was staying at Ambarnath and there was an LIC branch I was aware of. So one day I went there and met Mr. Deepak D Sawant also called as DD by his colleagues and friends.

DD is a very dashing personality and he spoke very enthusiastically about his work and how his agents working under him was doing both professionally and financially. He introduced me to few of them while my meeting with him.

One thing I observed about him was that he was different as compared to all the other Development Officers there. His approach was very professional and he was not trying to push me into anything.

I came back home and went over with all that he spoke. The decision was made and I enrolled myself under his mentor-ship to become an LIC Agent.

I had to undergo IRDAI training for 100 ours in order to get my License to do LIC business.
I completed the training and procured my License. In the meantime DD encouraged me to meet people and talk to them about my new profile and how I could help them in securing family and saving money for various provisions of life.

Before I did that I had made two of the most important principles which I followed, the first one was "I will not ask for business from my family or friends" and the second one was that "I will not do unethical business"

DD believed in learning and hence encouraged his agents to do the same. So I also involved myself in the learning. Usually all the agents preferred agents manual for easy premium calculations but DD made sure that all his agents also learned the basics of calculations manually as prescribed in LIC's agents manual which I call as LIC's bible.

Thus DD was instrumental in incorpoarating in me the habit of working from basics, and I am very grateful for him for this. Even today I start with working at the basics first and then gradually move to the advanced stages.

Within a very short span of time I knew about all of the plans offered by LIC the purpose they were meant for and how it worked.

At LIC I also met one of the most important person who further groomed me at various levels. He was an MBA Finance who also joined LIC like me as an agent under leadership of DD. His name is Krishnan Raman Vedant.

Krishnan and me became very close friends and our friendship has grown stronger with each passing years. He is lot of things for me a great friend, a mentor, a guide, a teacher and an incredibly brilliant and well read individual. With Krishnan it's never a dull moment.

We started our journey in the financial service sector together and are still walking the road together.
It was Krishnan who introduced me to Mutual Funds and shares. He taught me about FD's and NCD's, Bnnds & Debentures.

I owe a lot to these two people whom I met during my course of working with LIC.

You must be wondering what the heck, did he left LIC too :-/

Yes, I did that because it was time to take the next big leap. What that next big leap was and when and why I decided to do it?

You will learn all about it in my next post on this series, till then keep wondering and if you have any questions please feel free to write to me at "nilesharma@gmail.com" I assure you that I will respond to your e-mails within 48 hours

Thank you so much for dropping by and reading my posts.

Stay Happy :)

Taking baby steps in Video making...

Life is all about acquiring new skills and learning.

Keeping up with this philosophy, I recently acquired a new skill, that of making videos using video editor tool.

Although I have been taking photographs and shooting some scenic videos from my travels, but putting them in an album or making a slide show out of them never occurred to me.

But that has changed now.

I have decided to make an album/ slideshow from the travels and compile a video of it and share with you all on my channel "Nilesh Sharma- YouTube"

Yes, I know it may sound silly, but then I acquired this skill only very recently.

I took help from some online tutorials of some fantastic Vloggers on Youtube.

A very special thanks to "Billi 4 You"

His video "Best Video Editing Software for you"really helped me the most :)

I am taking baby steps, one at a time. Mistakes are bound to happen, but so will the new learning. 

With time I will master the art, in the meantime enjoy my kiddish work on display for you all to laugh and have some :)))

Find below my video which I have uploaded very recently, in an attempt to make a presence on new platform which is "Yuotube"for me.

If you want to know more of  this trip , I had also written in detail about it on my blog "River Rafting @ Rishikesh"

Please revert with your feedback and ideas as it will help me greatly.

I look forward for suggestions and support from you all. Thanks for reading,

Happy day :)

#billi4you