Stay Hungry Stay Foolish

I picked up a book to read after a long time. A nonfiction too, “Stay hungry Stay foolish” –by Rashmi Bansal.

But a sad joke is what struck me first. The title, a famous quote by Steve Jobs is what most of India lives by. Though literally.

Half of India stays Hungry.

Half of India stays foolish.

Modern Slavery

A news item, on millions in modern day slavery and half of them being in India got me thinking. 

Wikipedia says

"Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work.  Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation... "

I wonder if most of us fall into the above category. 

We are treated as property by people, companies, gods, god’s men and dozens of others. We are sold off at appraisals and by office politics. We are bought over naukri.com or some of us even ‘walk-in’.

Our mind is enslaved by the society. Though our body is free, our mind is chained. We are held against our will by responsibility, morality and fear. We are deprived of the right to leave, or is it worse? We have nowhere to go. We cannot refuse to work. We are sold and bought in open market by the illusion that we are demanding compensation.

I think the rat race of modern day life is the worst form of slavery. It is a form of slavery that we do not often realize. We train our mind to enjoy it, celebrate its success and even call it our passion.

Parents & Kids

          

        There are a lot of friends who are integral part of "me". But I have lost touch with many, for very long. They are in my thoughts and dreams often, but seldom on my caller list. This also makes me believe I have lost touch with myself. 

In a sense, this blog is one such friend.

Today's post is a question to my non existing readers.

You all are a child to wonderful parents and many are loving parent to an adorable child. I believe we take a lot from our parents and provide just moments of happiness in return.

So my question is: Which 6 months in life span of a child does he/she bring maximum happiness to his/her parents?

As I wait in hope that someone shall reply, I will discuss my answer. I believe parent child relation like every other relationship changes with time. So I believe it will be a lie if someone says kids feel the same to parents all the time. I probably brought more happiness to my parents as a kid than I do now as grown up.

In my opinion most parents get maximum happiness from their children between the age of 4 months to 10 months. 

Before this golden age babies are mostly sleeping and passive other than the occasional smile and gurgle. And after this age they start developing likes and dislikes, grow their own character, become demanding and this growth continues till they become useless grown up like me. 

Economics of Life

        One day I got some unplanned free time and I picked up a book. And due availability I pick up a nonfiction for first time in my life. I think I found it more interesting than I would have expected. And the book was freakonomics.  And my take away from the book was, not to trust anything and to question everything. I was so inspired that I did not trust a word the book said and continue to question few things (in my mind).

Quoting something that I liked from the book

“Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work - whereas economics represents how it actually does work”