Insomania

You have trouble sleeping in the night. If you don't then stop reading this and if you are, you just found yourself a friend in me. Yup that's me. I too have the problem of hitting the bed.

This has been going for some years now and somehow I have not been able to be on top of it. Its been more than a week that I hardly feel asleep now. So I end up getting late which makes life miserable for me.

My family feels that there is a ghost moving around the house which incidentally happens to be 'me' as I tend to move around my house when I don't feel asleep.

I tried counting sheep and it never ends, in fact coz of it I can say numbers in a descending order without stopping for once. Some one said reading a book helps in sleep, you know what I happen to finish that book in the early morning.

I envy people who falls asleep at the fall of a pin. There are people who can sleep throughout the day. Man, wish I could do that.

Hope that I am able to get a good sleep tonight!!

India's Quest to Olympics

"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part;
the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well"

— Pierre de Coubertin (founder of modern Olympic Games)

It was heartening to see the Indian flag rising at the top of the podium when Abhinav Bindra clinched the only individual gold medal in the 10m shooting competition in the recent Beijing Olympics 2008. This was a proud day for India and the Indians to cheer about.

Abhinav really needs to be complimented for the way he held his nerve to hit the bulls eye in the last round which made all the difference.

This happens to be the first individual gold medal to be won by India and that too after 28 long years. India's populations stands at about one billion approximately. This very much says a lot about the sorry state of affairs about sports excluding cricket which has the players raking in lots of moolah.

Though we have sport organizations formed to take care of the development of sports in India, we hardly get to see the results. It is very sad to see that we are not doing much for the development of sports, though we have athletes who overcame all these obstacles to win medals for India.

We need to learn a lot from our neighbor China which starts working on its athletes from a young age. No wonder they have bagged so many gold medals at the Olympics. I surely hope this we take a leaf out of China to change the face of the dismal state of sports in India.

Though Abhinav had the money to fund his training, others are not so lucky. Hope the sports authority takes a note of this and starts working on it soon as the 2010 Common Wealth Games is to be held in Delhi.

I hope to see us winning more medals at the Olympics and the coming Commonwealth Games in 2010.

Making A Difference!!!

"There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world;
Those who are afraid to try themselves, and those who are afraid that you will succeed."

— Ray Goforth

This got me thinking when I saw one of them in the local trains going about their work few years back. Today when I saw one of them again, I decided to share this thought with you.

You must be wondering what I am talking about, who I saw and all the fuss about. Relax, you see them everyday if you happen to travel in the Mumbai local trains and yet they remain invisible to us as we try to make our journey and for some a nuisance. I am talking about the individuals who are trying to make a living by selling accessories or singing in trains. For most of you they may appear as ordinary people who rob you of your peace when in transit. They do that as they are trying to make a living.

They are the real heroes who try to make a decent living even when the grim realities of their lives make it easier for them to get into illegal activities.

I often hear people saying they hate their lives. Even I do that. When I think of them, all my problems gets vanishes in thin air. If I am down, then I say to myself if they can do it so can I.

Life gives us lot of opportunities and options for solving the problems of our life, but they don't have that many options to make their problems go away. The only way they can do it is by making a decent living and hoping that they can give their children the kind of life they dreamed of.

It was the singing of a young girl accompanied by her father perhaps which are still fresh in my mind. The girl sang so beautifully the song and was moving towards people asking for money. My friend took out a 5 rupee coin and handed over to her. While I was indecisive about whether I should give it or not. Though I enjoyed her singing, I was in a dilemma as I have a strict policy of not giving money to kids who most of the time happen to be beggars as I wanted them to stop doing it. I thought if everyone did this, may be there won't be any kid begging in and around the streets. I did not offer the girl the money though I kind of regretted not doing it and kind of made it a point that instead of turning them away, we should encourage them of making as they are trying to make a decent living by singing or through selling items. Living life at their level is not that easy.

I would like to make a humble request, in case you come across them, do make a point to buy from them. There are times when we waste our money on useless things, only this time you would be making a difference!!

We all wish that we make a difference. How many of you have been able to do that? or have made an attempt to do it?

The most common answer would be that it is something that you only thought about but did nothing. While some even made an attempt to do so, some succeed some don't. Some even made the difference and feel great about it.

Where do you stand among them??