Whining!!! Does it Helps?

"Man spends his life in reasoning on the past,
in complaining of the present, in fearing future."

— Antoine Rivarol

Everyone somewhere or the other keeps whining about situations, people, places, etc. The reasons could vary from anything to everything like things not happening to their tastes, tiff with people because of various reasons and so on.

Why do people complain, is it because they are in a bad situation or things not going as per their will or they are not willing to accept the changes? One often hears people complaining about life that it was because of destiny they ended up this way. Do you agree that its fate which makes life harder for people or is it the other way round?

People tend to resign to their fates as they set their limitations. Often people just prefer to whine about the living standards, crime rate, workplace, people, etc and choose to do nothing about it. I have come across people who want to change the state of their lives but do very little in that direction. This reminds me of the famous line from the movie Rang De Basanti where Aamir Khan says "Zindagi jeene ke do tareeke hote hai, ya toh jo ho raha hai usse hone do, ya fir usse badalne ki zimmedaari uthao" (meaning there are two ways to live life, one to accept life as is or take responsibility to change it). How many of us do really make an attempt to change our lives or just let it fly by.

STOP WHINING and take control of your life. Here are some pointers on how one should go about it:

Accepting Changes: Often people resist alterations in their lives which often ends up hindering their progress. This could be due to fear of uncertainty, not knowing how to deal with the situations. One of the ways is to see changes in a positive light. Accept change as a part of life. If you are being transferred from your dept. of 2yrs to a new department, take it as opportunity to learn something new and who knows you might end up in a dept. that suits your skills better. Be the change you want to see. Try not to react to the situation but handle it tactfully.

Take Control: People often say that the government is doing nothing for them. You always feel disgusted to walk besides the garbage dump which has come up near your house. You choose to express your dismay but don't file a complaint with the local authorities to remove it. How do you expect things to happen if you don't do anything about it? As the famous lines from the US president J.F. Kennedy says "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for the country." If you are unhappy with a particular situation, then put in your efforts to change it. One cannot fight the system from outside, to get rid of corruption and tainted politicians one has to be a part of the system. Make changes in your life to live the life you always dreamed of. Join that dance classes that you always wanted to join but never did.

Resolving Issues: Sometimes even the most trivial issues can be resolved through discussions. It always helps to discuss the issues with individuals with whom you have a conflict. Like talking to your friend who had been saying bad things about you. Confronting them will only make the situation worse and you could end up losing your friend. There could be various reasons why they did it, try to find to out and see if you can forgive them and be friends again.

Things not in your favour: Many a times it happens that even after you make efforts the situation remains static. Don't get saddened by it, instead try to find out if you could have improved on your efforts or did you missed on something. If that is not the case then you can do very little to move it in your favour. You did your best. Accept the fact and move on with your life. If you did not get the promotion that you were pinning for, try to have a talk with your manager and find out the reasons. If they are acceptable to you, then you try to do well. If not then start looking for a new job.

Then there are people who prefer to whine about everything so to lessen their work or keep them in a spot light. These kinds of people tend to avoid their work and responsibilities. If you belong to this group then please stop whining and try to get a life. By whining you are only making a fool of yourself as people tend to judge them as cry babies. They don't tend to go ahead in their lives coz of whining.

You have the power of changing your life, place, state, nation and the world. And this will not happen unless you stop whining and be the change.

Ek Achi Adat

"The hardest job kids face today is learning

good manners without seeing any"

— Fred Astaire

Have you recently seen the new promo of the new Ramayan being broadcasted on NDTV imagine. Here is an excerpt below of one of the ads that was aired:

A child is shown singing and dancing to the "A Ganpat" song in front of the guest and his parents. It shows its parents embrassed by the song he chose to dance on. Then the line comes of teaching good manners to your kids. One can do that by watching Ramayan — Ek Achi Adat.

or

Imagine when a girl parent comes to inquire about her kid at her friends house and she blabbers "Bhag gayi hogi kisi ladke ke saath, kya kare jawani ka garam khoon hai na, koi baat nahi subah tak aa jaegi"

I really liked the way the creators of this ad made their point and kind of made me think about what the todays kids were seeing on the television. In a way they are right that today the television industry has become a victim of running after TRPs than to provide some quality entertainment. Everyone will admit that this is the dark age of television which is devoid of the meaningful serials (except for a meagre few). The reality shows that are shown are a turn-off with each channel have more than one reality show running. On top of that you will seeing them indulging in cat-fights to promote the shows. One of the reasons the saas-bahu serials are so popular because almost all the viewers are housewives. I happened to ask some people who used to watch such shows, one of the common replies that I came across that there was nothing else to watch!!!

Gone are the days when there were serials which we could watch as a family. There was something new to learn from it. This reminds me of my growing days when there serials like Nukkad, Fauji, Circus, Rajani, Yeh Jo hai Zindagi, Bangei Apni Baat, Just Mohabbat and others to name a few. Yes who can forget the Ramayan & Mahabharat. They were the best (I don't believe in remaking of movies/serials/songs which were a hit, but the Ramayan that is aired now is not that bad). They were the serials based on "real" people who had to handle difficult situations, fighting for your rights and the trauma of growing up :).

Nowadays, whenever I see any serial, the only thing that comes across that somewhere someone is plotting against each other. Have people stoop so low or the creative minds are out of ideas to churn out such trash. No wonder the Ramayan ad hits the wall pointing that there is hardly any serials today which a family can sit and watch together and with the kids learning from them.

Hope someone read this and make an attempt to change the current scenario of the serials that are being aired.

Gandhigiri

“War seems to be part of the history of humanity. As we look at the situation of our planet in the past, countries, regions and even villages were economically independent of one another. Under those circumstances, the destruction of our enemy might have been a victory for us. There was a a relevance to violence and war. However, today we are so interdependent that the concept of war has become out dated. When we face problems or disagreements today, we have to arrive at solutions through dialogue. Dialogue is the only appropriate method. One-sided victory is no longer relevant. We must work to resolve conflicts in a spirit of reconciliation and always keep in mind the interests of others. We cannot destroy our neighbors! We cannot ignore their interests! Doing so would ultimately cause us to suffer. I therefore think that the concept of violence is now unsuitable. Nonviolence is the appropriate method.”

— Dalai Lama

Recently “Lage Raho Munnabhai” won the National Award for Best Popular Movie for the year. If you think about it, the movie belonged to a different genre all together. The movie brought back something from the past that we had forgotten about. It repackaged it and named it “Gandhigiri”.

The movie theme was based on Gandhigiri. The way they highlighted the use of Gandhi’s ideals was commendable. A lot of credit for this goes to the writers Raju Hirani, Vidhu Vinod Chopra & Dr. Abhijat Joshi who happened to come up with such a good movie with a social message.

We all seem to have forgotten the “Mahatma” the Father of our Nation who seem non-existent in our today’s life. Except that we see his face on the hundred rupee note, his statues in parks and portraits in government’ offices under which officials take bribes.

His teachings of non-violence seems to have lost in history, as we stood ground to more than 50 years of independence of a country he fought for and died. The country now is in turmoil of corruption and violence. The movie happened to have brought back the Gandhi to life as people started to read more about his teachings and resorting to Gandhigiri.

The movie has its moments where a pensioner has to strip himself to get the government official to approve the grant of his pension fund as he does not have enough money to give bribe to him. Then there was this scene where a boy happened to lost all his father’s money and was contemplating suicide. Telling the truth to his father takes a lot of courage.

After the movie was released, there was news of people taking up Gandhigiri all around the country. There was news that flowers were being sent to the HRD minister Arjun Singh who seemed to be hell-bend on increasing the reservation quotas in IIT, IIMs where merit should be given a priority. Around 2000 debt-stricken farmers in India’s cotton growing Vidarbha region resorted to protest with flowers pursuing a bank to disperse loans.

Gandhigiri seems to be a hit with the youngsters who seemed intrigued with his teachings and simple living. You will find that there over 840 communities created on the Orkut site for Gandhigiri. If that is not enough, one can also do a search on google to find websites formed to spread the Gandhigiri and the teachings of the Bapu.

It is really fascinating to see how a movie can have its effect on the people. Let’s hope that this helps in eradicating the corruption and violence which has become rampant in the Mahatma’s nation. For now,

“GANDHIGIRI ROCKS”