Category: Calendar

A BMW

From my calendar.

Last year, on 26th July, I promised one of my mentors that I will have made enough money to buy a BMW by 26th Jul of 2015.

When I made that promise, I did not really have my eyes on a top end model, but on a simple X1. Which I thought was pretty doable – after all I am full of hope and I know I will do well in the future. Just that this future never comes. I have been full of hope for some 20 years now.

And thus the 26th of July in 2015 came and went and I am farther away from the beemer than I was on this date last year. In fact if I were to monetize all my assets and go to a car shop, I think I’d be able to afford a Tata Nano. May be. May be not. Depends on the shape of stock market. 

And no, I am not proud of it. Instead, it sucks. And sucks like crazy.

Thing is, a BMW is not really important. Its just a placeholder. Placeholder for affluence, success, fame, impact, love, relationships and other things that you use to measure the grandness of life, measure the success, measure the respect that you get from the world around you and all that.

I mean, at my age, you ought to have achieved at least one of the following…
– create an unicorn
– make a ding in the world  
– own a fleet of cars – including a Batmobile.
– earn enough money to retire at an island like the Necker
– use the leftover money to help others (not via NGOs) but via a ‘skills imparting business’ 
– make a trip to the space
– date a supermodel (Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone, Julia Roberts etc.) 
– win cash the WSOP ME
– exchange vows of life with the love of your life (after you found her of course)
– discover the purpose of your existence and thus the life
– travel the world
– etc… 
and more. 

But I haven’t done any of these. I am more than half-way my useful life span and I am miles away from any of these.

The least I could have done was to get myself a car. May be a BMW X1?

An Ode to Agony Aunts

Amongst all the wonderful things that God made, before He put us down here, probably the most underrated is this creature called the Agony Aunt.

Folklore has that when Adam got bored of Eve and all the apples in the Garden of Eden, he got so disillusioned with life that that he actually shunned all forms of pleasure. He became a nomad and set about on a journey, with no destination in mind. And while he was meandering around, he bumped into this his wonderful creature, which initially looked like yet another human being, but tuned out to be much more. He immediately felt at peace moment he saw her. He knew that she might not have all the answers, infact no answers at all, but she is someone with whom he could be himself again and let all worries take the back seat. He called this creature Agony Aunt.

So who exactly is an agony aunt? Someone who is around when you need her? Someone who you trust? Someone who won’t judge you for your actions or for your thoughts when you go and bare your soul? Someone who would not sell out gory details of your actions to paparazzi for paltry money? Someone who would not expect any damn thing from you? Someone who is all of this? And a wee bit more?

I am so grateful to this life that I have the bestest agony aunt ever. Funny thing is that no greeting card company has created The Agony Aunt’s day. Lemme take a lead and declare 15th Nov as Agony Aunt’s Day.

Happy Agony Aunt’s Day VK! Thank you for everything!