What is your idea of happiness?

Acceptance Accept the present Accept what has happened Accept what is happening That is what is real and true!!! A few years down the line I read somewhere Be an inverse Paranoid. Believe that whatever is happening is happening for your Good! That the world conspires to make you better make you happier And, at the end of it Even if things are not going well Try the smile therapy Its the younger cousin of laughter therapy Force the widest possible smile on your lips. I do not know if it might work for everyone else or not It does work perfectly in my case! What is your greatest fear? Hurting those whom I love! Generally I am not the one who repents what he has done. But any of my actions where my loved ones Family and Friends are involved; I go over the sequence umpteen no. of times to convince my mind that I must not have hurt them! Which historical figure do you most identify with? Mahatma Gandhi Without a shred of Doubt! I know there are quite a few schools of opinion about him. But I frankly believe that Perfection is not possible and hence nobody can make everybody happy and satisfied But if there has been a person in Living Human memory that has gone closest to perfection It is Gandhiji! More I read about him, more I begin to love and admire him. Rest is up to different individuals to decide and form an opinion about him. You may love him or hate him But certainly, you cannot ignore him. Which living person do you most admire? My Mom! Again without any possible shred of doubt! Had I been half as hard working as my mom is I might have already been able to get the Time Machine patented! At a stage when you are growing up, trying to learn what struggle is and what is the definition of hard work, if you get to see your mother already studying when you wake up, then cook, do the daily chores, prepare you for school and study When you come back, a fabulous mouth watering meal is waiting again for you and then she will study as you take the afternoon nap in the name of good health and sound sleep. When you get up, she has already cooked the evening refreshments. You go and play for an hour; come back and demand for something to eat and here it is Then she will get all your homework done and when you go off to sleep, you find she is still studying! If you have a mom like that you do not need to look anywhere else for inspiration However competitive and fast paced the world might be!!! What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

I am too lazy I do not work hard I hardly work!!! I am exactly opposite of my mom in this regard, too lazy to go through the necessary motions. Looking back I find all my failures can be attributed to the fact that I did not work hard enough even if things were looking up! My life forms a very peculiar pattern in whatever I have seen till now. If I work hard and honestly, I succeed irrespective of the fact what my skills in that particular aspect are. I have seen my hopes being shattered every time when I thought that I was good and could do with a breather! And in this aspect, I somehow automatically decide what is to be done in two extremes Go all out Or say thank you very much! And that is quite true I find it very hard to work if I dont like the job! What is the trait you most deplore in others? Hypocrisy! We accept it or not We humans are naturally Hypocrites. We all judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions. And add to that we love to criticize everybody else who might be even at slightest of odds with us. We are a country where even Mahatma Gandhi and Sachin Tendulkar are not spared the brunt of criticism and not always for deserving reasons. Plus, we Indians have a typical habit of demeaning everything that is native and glorifying all that is foreign, from man to material everything perhaps we have taken our old adage, a bit too literally and at wrong end of it! What is your greatest extravagance? Family and friends; And the gifts that I buy for them. Somehow, despite trying my best to control myself, I am never able to exercise caution about my budget when doing the shopping and esp when I am buying for my sister. What is your favourite journey? Journey home... from wherever I might be and for obvious reasons. However, talking more philosophically, it is the Journey of Life. Looking back everything looks so good and rosy. But while we are at it, it is always painful. We try not to be satisfied for the sake of progress and yet we look on those who are in worse situation and try to derive pleasure from their misfortune for the sake of sanity in our own lives. Who are your favourite painter, composer, actor and singer? Raja Ravi Verma, Gulzar, Amitabh Bachchan and Falguni Pathak. I do not have much understanding of painting and to add to that I do not have an ultra modern taste of art, culture, music and literature. Plus, in most of these aspects my choices are very pragmatically but self-justifiably limited to India. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Truth and Honesty! I agree to the adage that Honesty is the Best Policy and for the children must be taught this and encouraged to be honest. But as we grow up, we realize that being true and honest is not the way forward for the greater good. At times, Wrong is only a notion and wrong actually is done when people try to alter that situation under the impression that It will help the cause of truth and righteousness. If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be? I would like all of us to live together If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would it be? A human being, for sure may be as woman next time If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be? A poet. What is your idea of misery? Not being able to help friends despite wanting to. Where would you like to live? I would not change even a single thing Muzaffarpur, Bihar, India! What is your favourite occupation? Writing poems and listening to music. What is your most marked characteristic? My confidence in myself. What is the quality you most like in the opposite sex? Patience and tolerance. What do you most appreciate in your friends? Honesty and trust. Who are your favourite authors?

Dinkar and Harivansh Rai Bachchan. Who is your favourite hero of fiction? Harry Potter. Who are your heroes in real life? My mom. What are your favourite names? Priya and Raj. On what occasion do you lie? Oh, Yes! I lie and as a fact I lie very frequently. Sometimes it is an occupational hazard to get the job done in a better manner and other times it is in consonance with what I expressed above, when I feel that truth and honesty might not be the best policy. What do you dislike most about your appearance? Nothing! I am perfectly happy with what God has made me and given me. And for one simple reason, I am more so encouraged in this belief of mine is that, those who love me, love me for what I am. I do not need to care about those who do not, for those who love me are undoubtedly the more important people in my life and at no cost I would like to do anything that might hurt them Even changing myself for whatever reason! Which living person do you most despise? Generally, No body specific. Though I hate fanatics and those who divide the country on various pretext and those who spread misinformation especially among the youth and misguide them. But yes, In particular, I would say, I despise Bala Saheb Thackeray for his frequent idiotic ideas and divisive politics. Which words or phrases do you most overuse? Ah Few of my friends think I overuse the word thik hai. And add to that addressing people by calling them babu affectionately. What is your greatest regret? Not being able to live with my parents and sister and especially on festivals.

What or who is the greatest love of your life? My Family, My country and Hindi Literature. Which talent would you most like to have? Singing. I love music a lot. But sadly I am not someone with a good voice. When I try to sing, I feel that I might be doing the melodies a disservice by distorting them. So, I desist from singing. Though you would find me listening to music almost throughout the day! What do you consider your greatest achievement? Nothing that I have done yet in particular. Though if any of my deeds make my parents proud, it qualifies as a great achievement. What is your most treasured possession? My family and friends. I believe friends are the definition of man. Relatives are some people you cannot pick and choose. They are luck or as I love to call luck pluck. Good or bad, you can do nothing about them. But your friends are the ones by looking at whom one might make an opinion about you. Your choice of friends tells a lot about your qualities as a person. By and far, my family and friends are the ones I treasure the most and cant even dream of a life without them. When and where were you happiest? All the time But when with friends and family certainly there are no bounds!!! What is your present state of mind? Relaxed and yet coaxing Coaxing for what I must be doing right now to make better use of my time. How would you like to die? Well actually I have never given the Death thing a thought yet There is too much of life in this world to think of death! But may be, I would love to die while celebrating life and its various vagaries with friends and family! What is your favourite motto? There is no key to Happiness happiness is the key.