Indian democracy is still alive.

Yesterday, when the results of 5 states came out, it was Congress winning in most states and not BJP. This was surprising, even for Rahul Gandhi.

Something that has not happened in years happened yesterday when Congress won the state elections is some important and big states of the country.

I was both happy and sad for it. Happy because even today a strong political party will be shown the door if it doesn’t work properly. Noone can take the people of this country for granted. It proved that this country is not moving towards a single party rule.

But at the other hand, I was sad that why does Congress has to win, if not BJP. Is Indian politics this binary. Either dial BJP or Congress, is that all our options are? The lack of credible options for people to vote for is a serious concern for any democracy.

It was more of BJP losing than Congress winning. People didn’t vote for congress but against BJP.

We clearly need some good political alternatives other than BJP and Congress. But what yesterday did for us is send a clear message to all parties that if you make empty promises then you’ll be held accountable.

Indian democracy is still alive though its still far for good enough. We can say we are on our way.

-ChoubeySahab

PS. Views expressed are personal.

Love yourself.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? or you maybe thinking who doesn’t love their ownself? As a matter of fact very few do.

Even if you do love yourself then I can almost be certain that you don’t love yourself enough. But first let us put to words what does self love actually mean.

The love that you show for yourself for all you’ve been through, all things good or bad about you. Knowing that you are not the best but you are trying your best is self love. Buying street snacks while traveling alone is self love.

We don’t realize it but we compromise on ourselves. If we are alone at home, we don’t eat food because there’s no one to eat with, this is a classic example of lack of self love.

The special thing about you is you know all about yourself, you can’t lie to yourself for what you truly are. This makes you the perfect person for you to fall in love with. You know all your insecurities, all the things you’ve done wrong. Most of all you are loyal to yourself. You can never be separated from this one individual that’s you. So why not love this person.

Why not let the world know how much you have fallen for this one individual. People may leave, stop caring for you but you will be with you. Forever.

Keep that you with you because this is what will stay no matter how bad times get.

Your only true companion is you yourself.

-ChoubeySahab

Not this easy.

Writing a piece everyday isn’t as easy as it may seem. Putting it out into the world makes it even more difficult.

You don’t just have to write, but write something that makes sense to those who read it. You can’t get too personal while writing because it’s not about you or someone else, it’s about each one reading.

Another thing, and in my view the most difficult of all, is not let your deepest emotions spill out into what you write. Containing all emotions and trying to be rational in what you write is the most tough part.

One more thing that you need to ensure is to not write anything that is controversial or may hurt the sentiments of someone.

All this while ensuring you use the right spelling, grammar and structure. Typos can simply ruin the whole piece.

I can go on and on just speaking of how complex this whole writing a piece a day is. But all of it make the skill of writing one to take up and nurture within yourself.

This ain’t easy at all but that’s what makes it worth it all.

-ChoubeySahab

Internet isn’t truly open.

When you listen the term internet, what is the first thing that comes to your mind. Probably the vast knowledge on offer, openness and the equal treatment the internet offers to all users.

But do you know the internet you use in India is different from the one in US which is again greatly different from China. By different I mean that all these 3 countries have access to different set of websites. A popular website in US is more likely not accessible / banned in China.

This can be because of 2 reasons:

1. The China govt has banned the website for some reason.

2. The US website owner has blocked Chinese users.

The govt usually bans a website when it has offensive / obscene content. While a website blocks a country because it’s not offering services in those countries or just plain bias.

Many US websites which offer nothing more than information are not accessible from poor black countries. The website owners just don’t want black people benefitting from their site.

But wait, internet was meant to be open, for everyone. If this were the case then this blocking and banning sites based on location is against our internet ethics.

The problem here is the lack of a global authority over the internet which would decide what is right or wrong with the internet. This leaves website owners on their whims, who can simply block access from an entire country in just a click.

Here, you see, the internet is not open nor does it treat everyone equally. The internet is biased, you just weren’t aware of it until now.

-ChoubeySahab

Learning. (micro blog)

I’m deeply interested in how can learning be done better. By learning I don’t mean rote, I mean actually taking in knowledge and retaining it.

I thought an experienced teacher would know the answer to this question better. So I went ahead and asked one of my past most experienced teacher this- What according to you brings about learning?

The first sentence that came out of her mouth- “learning by doing”. She said when children actually start working practically on what they’ve read on their books. It is at that time that learning happens best.

I then followed up with- Why is learning by doing so important?

Her answer to this was that when children start doing, more of their senses are engaged, do the knowledge absorption and retention both are enhanced. She even gave a rule to me- while teaching, the more senses of students you can engage, the better teacher you are.

She then told me that our education system isn’t recognizing this and all we are focused on is rote learning books and getting marks. The system is really centred around getting marks while what should’ve been the case is centre should be learning and everything else should revolve around that.

I asked her if she still has hope that things will get better and students will start working they should.

She said yes, a person without hope is useless.

-ChoubeySahab

Not getting overwhelmed. (200th micro blog)

On this day when I’m writing 200th blog on the 200th day since starting, I was thinking, what is the most apt thing I can talk about on completing the double century of blogs.

It turned out to be the ability to not get overwhelmed. Such feats can be intimidating and can cause one to think highly about one’s ownself. The ability to stay grounded when you have wings (even if fake) is not an easy thing to do.

I want you to think and celebrate each of your new achievements like a milestone, a check point in the bigger race. It is important to celebrate these check points because that’s what keeps us motivated to win the bigger race.

We all wish to fly some day. Some of us actually may even get wings but what matters most will be staying grounded despite those wings.

But this isn’t easy to do in practice.

Here I have a hack for you to not feel overwhelmed by “your” achievement:

Realize that the achievement is not yours only. It belongs to so many who helped you get here. So many without whom this achievement, which is a reality today, would just remain a dream.

Make yourself realize how small a role you’ve played in getting to where you are.

Here I acknowledge and thank you for being with me through the thick and thin of these 200 blogs. Some of which were really unbearably bad while some were good. You showed your love for all of them. It would not be possible without you.

“Nothing big enough is ever accomplished by individuals” and this again was a cumulative effort of you and me. Let’s take this partnership forward for years to come.

Much love.

-ChoubeySahab

Question vs answer.

What’s more important-the question or the answer ? If we try to dwell deep into it, we see that questions make us think. Questions are open ended which can throw your head in multiple directions. Questions provoke curiosity.

Answer on the other side are solutions. Answer is where we stop thinking. Answer is where we get satisfied. Answer is where our curiousity ends. Answer is the end of discovery.

Clearly, questions are better.

An unanswered question is much much better than a perfect answer. Better questions lead to better thinking which leads to better answers.

We can research on questions while answers can just be checked and verified. A question can be looked at from multiple angles while an answer is pretty straight forward.

Questions are the beginning of learning while an answer to it is an end until we find another question worth finding an answer.

Here we got the results for you:

In this battle of question vs answer. Question wins, hands down.

-ChoubeySahab

Paris is burning.

Yes, you read that right. Paris is burning both metaphorically and literally.

Metaphorically because of the raging anger among the french citizens for raising petrol prices. Literally because these angered citizens are taking to the roads and literally burning cars and other modes of transport.

This feels a bit absurd while sitting here in India. I mean we are pretty cool with the unjustified petrol prices here. In fact we are waiting for it to touch 100 so that we can start celebrating.

Well, turns out, the french take no shit. They have made it a ritual to come out in big numbers every Saturday to revolt. Who does that on a weekend? Concerned and aware citizens do.

Actually, the revolt was initially not as intense as it has turned into the last few Saturdays. That’s because the anger that started off because of petrol prices has now turned into a nation activitity of questioning and condemning the government’s wrong / unjustified moves.

I can’t say if the revolt (which is violent now) is good or bad. But at least the citizens know what they deserve and are holding the government accountable.

We Indians need to hold our government accountable. The reason a democratic country like India is run like a dictatorship where you can’t question the officials until the next 5 years when the elections are due is because we are not concerned for what we deserve.

One of our primary duty is to hold the government accountable and ask questions. Rape is not the only issue that should provoke our anger. There are many others which we tend to look over.

We need to start doing the complete duty of a responsible citizens and question the government on every objectionable move.

-ChoubeySahab

Slow is fast.

With all the noise of moving fast and hustling. I’m a big advocate of moving slow.

I believe that slow is fast. This is because when you move slow, you’ve a ton of time to think while implementing and ensuring that you’re on the right track towards your ultimate goal.

If you move fast then you’ve little to no time to think what you’re doing and success becomes a mere chance. While moving fast you might even go on a different path that doesn’t even lead you to the desired goal.

By moving slow I mean reflecting of each step you make towards your goal. Contemplating if the step is in the right direction or a different step would be better. You might call this over thinking but this method minimizes failures while maximizing the chances of success.

It will feel slow in the short term while this approach will actually help you reach your goals faster than the ones who were solely focused on executing fast.

In a way, we can say, that moving slow (thoughtfully) is faster than moving fast. Life is not 100m sprint, it’s a marathon and the one who strategizes better,wins.

-ChoubeySahab

Life is long enough.

It’s pretty common to see people complaining that life is short. Well it isn’t. In fact it is longer than it’s ever been and is progressively getting longer with improvement in tech and healthcare.

Then why do people call it short? Because they’re afraid that they’ll die before doing the things they most want to do.

But then why can’t they do it now? Because many of these things requires them to go against societal norms, so people delay their wishes to fulfill the society’s wishes.

Does that mean if you if you start doing the things that you wish to do then you will have more time and life won’t be short? Practically no, as the length of your life will remain more or less the same but the way you live will improve multiple fold.

Here I would like to bring out “ quality over quantity ” , if you do the things you love right now despite the societal expectations then:

1. You’ll live without the fear of dying before trying doing things you love.

2. You’ll be determined to do good because you’ve the society to prove it to that you were right.

3. You’ll be happy with yourself.

I greatly follow this in my own life. My parents probably detest me for this but this makes me live my life to the fullest.

If I die sooner than normal (which I won’t) then I won’t feel bad about not giving it a shot. I won’t feel bad about delaying the things I love because society told me it wasn’t the right time for that thing.

Life isn’t short, you just need to start living it better.

Life is now. In this moment. Live it here.

Before it’s gone.

-ChoubeySahab