My father started working at 6!

Earlier this month my father completed 40 years of his shop.

He’s 67, and had already worked in multiple “jobs”, before “starting on his own”. Here’s a journey of his work, starting from age 6!

1. Worked for FREE in a bakery at the age of 6, used to get crushed powder of toasts as daily “stipend”

2. Worked at two general stores in later summer vacations at school.
He was so much into cleanliness that once the shop owner’s bag of cash fell off from a higher shelf!
Guess what, my father had such a repute of honesty that the shopkeeper never changed its place!

3. Worked at a readymade garments shop as he “grew up” 🙂

4. Worked at a crockery of a relative, created a huge repute and profit for them, however, later the relative had to sell it off due to financial crunch

5. Worked as a typist at the age of 18, at one of the reputed shops in our city

6. Got placed at a factory by his employer, where he almost died by sinking in a pit while riding his cycle back home, and “someone magically appeared from nowhere” and saved him! Yes, he and a friend went to search for cycle the next day and got it 🙂

7. He found refute that day at a nearby factory, which later hired him. That factory was JK Paper Mills. He was even hired by DCM, Waterworks, and all the factories but he was underage!

8. Along with working at JK, he opened his shop on 05 August 1981. Used to work there in the mornings and nights.

9. Quit his job in October 1982, while his kids were 3 and 4 respectively. Talk risk!!

10. When he started, his shop was in a narrow street. His Uncle, in 1983, suggested to buy one of the new shops coming up at the main road. He didn’t have the deposit money. The bakery shop owner, with whom my father used to work “for free”, lent him the advance deposit. Till date, our shop is exactly at the same place.

11. Not to mention, he also used to do “flipping” by getting socks, watches from Delhi and selling them in our home town in Kota. However, he felt he wasn’t playing it ethical by showing a low-quality item as shiny and that was unfair to customers’ money.

Last year, as I was freelancing, I had once suddenly lost a high-ticket client. One morning I was sitting in my room and thinking, I saw my father doing his prayer rituals as usual.

He was as tensionless, as free and as “let life come as it wants to” attitude on his face.
If 40 years of business could keep him tension free, I had no right to get tensed that day.

That day, my father gave me hope.
Today as I asked him this entire story, he gave me the power of resilience.
And every day, he gives me the power of love by getting apples / mangoes for me (instead of bakery stuff that both my parents love :D)

We are not the best of friends, but he accepts me when I’m doing a headstand in the middle of the room, and I accept him when he “turns on auto-download” of WhatsApp forwarded pics, and together, we all are imperfectly perfect!

Just as we should be 🙂

I wish I had the superpower of memory loss!!?

Just for one minute, just for one minute I popped out of my room and saw Maa watching Anupama, where someone is telling her, I wish everyone had this blessing of memory loss.

Maa be like: I agree!

Damn!

Okay, you want to forget?

Forget.

As simple as this. You remember because you remember, nothing else.

I remember my first relationship – I was so sooo deep into the memories of it years after it got over, that I remembered the chats of our conversations for years. Years! And this is after I deleting all of those, with NO back-up at all.

At a certain point, I remember it happened in early 2019, I forgot everything. EVERYTHING.

As a matter of fact, very recently I was reading my book which I wrote early in 2019 and was going through a snippet of chat, and I was like, “Dude, I didn’t know I remembered all of this!”

Forgetting is not a super power. It’s a choice.

Ironies of life

There is a wonderful client of mine, whose business is making Ayurvedic drinks.

He once graciously sent me a huge pack of Ayurveda drinks, along with two packs of hot chocolate powder and gourmet coffee.

It turns out, everyone in my family loves hot chocolate powder more. Which comes from an Ayurveda drinks manufacturer. Ironies of life.

The other day, I was having that chocolate shake, while my Mom asked, “You’re still working with this client, right?”

I couldn’t stop laughing. Ironies of life – me who was having it once a month, and my Maa who doesn’t have it either – both trying to love the chocolate product of an Ayurveda manufacturer.

PS: Here’s a pic, of that chocolate shake. Enjoy 😊

The saint and the prostitute

There was once a saint who lived up there, in the mountains. To meditate. And think positive thoughts.

In the hut, just opposite to his, used to live a prostitute. Every day, she used to look at the saint and be inspired – as to this is how I should be living my life – filled with positivity, and thinking of God.

Meanwhile, the saint used to look at the prostitute’s house, and think about how she is ruining her life, how her life is terrible, and how he would never want a life like that.

Several years later, they both died.

Up in the clouds, it was decided that the prostitute will go to heaven and the saint will go to hell.

“Why, I was meditating whole day?” rebelled the saint.

Here’s what the administrators up there told them:

It is not what you do, it is what you are thinking about whole day, that makes the difference. While you were busy mocking the prostitute in your mind, she was busy idealising a meditative lifestyle.

It turns out, our thoughts actually run or ruin the world.

The First Therapy Session

Had the first therapy session today.

Who in the world talks about it openly?

Well, we haven’t been open, that is why we have been needing therapy 🙂

On that note, it felt a bit better. Even though it will take some time to heal unseen wounds of years, well, all is well that starts well. 😊

The art of asking

The best way to ask for a busy person’s time is NOT by asking them when they’re free.

They value their free time more than their “busy time” and would protect it at all costs.

A more effective way is: To ask how they can help, where the response most likely would be a one-liner.

If you convince them to care, they will dig out the time when they are “busy.”

About Father’s Day

Last Sunday, we had a blast on Father’s Day. Nothing “special”. Just that since it was Sunday, I took my Kindle and sat in the living room, instead of sneaking into my room.

Had life conversations with my parents.

Got to know that my father’s first internship started at age 6.

Learnt the immense power of putting your head down and doing the work, even when you are not being paid.

And more than anything else, got the immense power of learning to spend some time together with family. Not everyday religiously, but at least consistently :))

A relationship of 10 years!

It was June 2011 when my friend dragged me to a seminar after college.

It was “Aadarsh Amdavad”, a 15-day self-help workshop, that consisted of:

Daily 2 hour sessions by an acclaimed speaker
Had a spectrum of audience instead of a narrow group
It did not want us to “get better”, but the way it was designed, ended up making us better.

After that fortnight of daily wisdom, I felt a surge of happiness that I didn’t want to let go of.

So I started walking to Crossword Book Stores near my college, after the workshop got over.

For hours, I would just sit there and read, not knowing I was getting into an affair it would be impossible to get out of.
For hours, I would not care about anything in the outside world, just me and the books.
For hours, daily, it was a retreat from everything else in the world!

That love affair has lead to a lifetime partnership with books now.

More than anything else, keeping myself lost in that world has lead me to find myself, over and over again, peel by peel, page by page.

Here’s to a decade of that relationship 🙂
Here’s to a relationship that is with you ALWAYS…
Here’s to a lifetime of companionship!!!

Happy – not anymore?

Even thebiggest happiness could being about a place of sadness if you happen to compare yourself to others.

Someone else, younger than you, is going to get all the things you have been waiting for.

Does it feel bad! Maybe yes.

Should it feel bad? The answer to this could never be yes.

What’s the solution, then? The solution is to put yourself in more I more situations like these because that only would help you work harder and challenge yourself more often.

Think over it. Someone else won, you lost; and then you created your own plan of confidence a reality.

Tag: relationship

My father started working at 6!

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I wish I had the superpower of memory loss!!?

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Ironies of life

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The saint and the prostitute

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The First Therapy Session

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The art of asking

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About Father’s Day

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A relationship of 10 years!

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Happy – not anymore?

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