An Experience reading God's Debris

Reading a book is of course an experience, and this post is mainly to share my experience of having read one of the books in the very recent past.

The book is Scott Adam’s “God’s debris”.
Scott Adam is the famous creator of the Dilbert cartoons. Personally I am not so much a fan of any cartoon strip ... (You see I don’t really have a funny bone). But I actually liked this particular strip to a large extent. Maybe I identified with the context more than anything else.

Ok Now, for the reason behind my interest in reading the book. Firstly the Title of the book  seems very interesting… (No, I am a very religious person but if someone has given such a title I ought to know the reason behind it).

Next was the Author, I liked his cartoons and wanted to see his serious side of writings too. Again I don’t consider writing those cartoon strips as non-serious business, simply because I guess it takes a lot of effort to come up with the comedy that is mostly projected in his cartoon strips. Third being that a friend of mine suggested me to read that book.

The time when I actually started with this book was also important and perhaps that’s the reason I enjoyed it. I was in a very contemplative mood and was basically pondering over many issues in my life in general. So on one such day when my mind refused to think for any of my problems, I picked up the book to read and what a feeling it actually gave me. I haven’t completed the book so far finished only 3/4th of it (though it is merely 144 pages). Then you must be thinking why I am writing about the book, that’s fairly simple because I just wanted the experience of this book to be treasured. No, this is not a review for the book, no critical analysis will follow. I will only try and explain how this book made me feel in one of those losing moments in my life.

As I began to read this book, it gave me a feeling of something that we term as “out of the box” thinking, especially the old man’s ideas. I don’t exactly remember but I think I heard a particular term that was used for such thinking as projected in this book by the old man. It is such a free flowing conversation between two gentlemen and so engaging for the reader too. In fact with each of those chapters you would want to be placed in that old man’s chair and ask those questions yourself. But you will also realize how difficult it is to have such a radical view on certain subjects. You will realize how our mind has been trained to think in a particular pattern regarding few subjects. The most profound truths that we would have accepted are questioned or we can say are reasoned out in this book. It has a language in which he will be able to convince you, but also raise a few questions on your own self too.

Some of the things that I concluded after reading it are:
We as humans are exposed to the environment around us and t a great extent our thinking is molded by the things we read, are taught, we observe and slowly by experience just take them to be the truth. And sometimes we also reach a stage where we would refuse to question our beliefs to a very large extent. The idea is always to have a very openness to receive thoughts from everywhere, validate and reason it out and then accept or reject or formulate your own theories.


On the lighter side, people who are interested in abstract discussions and have a philosophical bent of mind, do read this book, it will surely make you amused.

Yeh Safar

Ek raasta hain zindagi , joh tham gaye toh kuch nahin..

Yeh kadam kisi mukaam pe jo jum gaye toh kuch nahin..

Song from Kaala pathar... one of those rare movie themes attempted by Yash Chopra..
Writers .. Salim Javed.
The song pictures the undying spirit of a man who is ready to travel and fing his own course.


We all are in a journey of life right from the time when we are infant.
And from that stage we have evolved and the journey of that evolution is something that makes out what it is.


The journey so far has seen us fall when we still learning to stand up and walk, yet we remained undeterred and pulled ourselves up and took it forward. With every fall, we gained strength and with every heights that we conquered, we gained confidence. Lets face it!!
We all fail at some stage or the other and failure is not the verdict on one's life, its the honest effort that should be a verdict on your life. The world judges you by your success rate... True.


But whats the one thing that defines the value you have for yourself? Thats the undying spirit to move and conquer all the obstacles in your path and make wonderful memories of the times of this journey to achieve what you have set out to achieve.

Parting thoughts - " Let us take ourselves forward in this journey carrying the lessons of the past and regaining the undying spirit for facing all impediments in the course of our journey.

Dedication and Work

There is a janitor in our floor in my office; she is in charge of the 2 floors. Her duty sheet is hung in the restroom and she dutifully cleans everything in that place to perfection and enters her times in that sheet everyday. Her duty schedule is every hour starting from 8:30 AM – 5:30 PM. I was marveled by the sense of duty or let’s say the dedication that she has for her work. For the nature of the work is not something one can really feel good about, (No, It is a painful job according to me to clean others toilets)



The reason for this post is not that I want to preach something about her job, but because today, when I saw her precision of carrying out her task for a brief moment I was reminded of many people whom I have seen admired so far.


For example:


While I was in my Class 7, I had an English teacher and her work was to teach us English which she did like rest of any normal teachers in the school. But there was a particular quality in her that I noticed and find it interesting to point it out.


Most teachers so far for my English course would just correct the answers and when it came to the Essay writing and letter writing section would just put a tick and allot some marks and move ahead. But this teacher of mine had all the patience to mark the lines which she found erroneous and corrected the sentence in red ink. It used to make my paper too colorful :P with all the red marks here, there and everywhere. But I have learnt a lot in the process, because my goal in her subject used to now be that she should not be able to point anything with that red ink. Though I did not succeed in that, but I learned the subject well.


If she was like the rest of the teachers I would have never realized the mistakes that I did so often. She once called me to her chamber and advised me on things that were of little importance to her and guided me to write more, read more… Once my father happened to see my English papers and said that she was a good teacher who wants you to learn the right things sooner and also told me to think about the effort that she had put in her work or dedication that she had in it, she never minded straining herself so much to correct the sentences not only for my paper but for the 40+ students in the class.


My First mentor in my first company and first project was also someone who had an incredible amount of dedication for her work. She was the one who taught me that even when you think you have nothing to work on… Evaluate your work and find out things that can be smoothened, streamlined and add value, create utilities for the tasks that you repeatedly do and keep it handy. I saw her coming to office to finish some of the clean up on databases after she had resigned and was serving the notice period. It was such a rare sight to see when someone had already resigned and is termed as a free bird was in office on a Sunday trying to clean up and make things perfect from her end.


I saw my father sometimes working late into nights to prepare a balance sheet as the financial year end approaches and his part time workload increases and my mother sitting next to him without any complaints. And my father went about his work with utmost concentration and precision of calculating the figures, drawing the lines and putting them in paper. Once I happened to ask my mother if she is ever angry when my father is working late into the night, she simply said that he who enjoyed doing this and she finds that dedication towards one’s work is one of the qualities that one must develop at a very early stage. She said that we may not find the success always, but always a satisfaction of having done the work well enough.


I had a friend from School and she also had this special thing in her which actually endeared her more to me, At any given point of time, given any task, her full focus was on the task at hand and it was a treat to watch her sometimes when she worked.


All these people, may not be great achievers but have one thing in common, they have a satisfied soul. Happiness stems from the fact that one has achieved what they set out to achieve, no matter how small the goal is- but they have given everything to ensure it reaches the perfection it deserves. We should strive to work in a manner just not to finish the work at hand, but give the work its due respect, that respect comes back in the satisfaction that you get after you see the results of your effort.
I am sure there are many people in this world with the same zest and dedication towards their work and for all those people it’s a hats off from my end, because it’s your efforts that make this place beautiful and proud to be in… Thank you and a parting that I have tried and always will do my best in whatever task I take up

Right V/s Convenience

I recently attended a session, and the presenter was trying to explain the difference between doing “what is right and what is convenient” and then posed a question to the audience, after describing the scenario.


The scenario (is a different one) and is described as below:
“A project manager working on a high critical project leaves his office evening 8:30PM after finishing a smooth release for the project; he drives towards home satisfied of delivering the customer on time and with good quality. It’s his 4 year old son’s birthday and he knows that if he reaches more lately, his son will be hurt. As he is driving, he fails to notice the signal and skips it, invariably the traffic police stop him and he also obliges and parks his car on one corner. Police start demanding money and he asks for the receipt for the fine that he is paying. The police juts wanted to have the money and without any receipt but he was adamant to get the receipt. A long war of words follow and finally the police gives him the receipt and leaves. He reaches home at 11 PM and his son is asleep after waiting for long hours for his father”.

Now the question: “Is the project manager’s acting based on his principles? Is he right in delaying his way back home for a traffic signal issue?”
The answer was YES. .

It is sometimes so difficult to detach ourselves and say or act on things which according to our believed principles are RIGHT. The detachment once we are able to achieve, we can safely say that we can never do a thing for which “we have to feel sorry about”.
The biggest hurdle to overcome is the fact that most of us in our mind are more and more conscious of “our image” in front of others. We don’t take anytime to think if we can face our naked self and be what we are with PRIDE. The PRIDE of being ourselves has been wrapped in so much of layers of the image we present to the world that we lose ourselves sometime, somehow… .

The definition says the PRIDE is a feeling of self respect or self worth, then why is it that we allow our PRIDE to be dictated or defined by the image that others have of us. Why do we have to consciously be what the world seems to “See in us” rather than be “What we want to be”. .

We will argue for the sake of LOVE, LOYALTY, and TRUST etc… (Generalized everything as LOVE, since they all stem from that basic feeling) we will say from rooftops that we don’t have the right to hurt the person we love, or renounce the thing we love. But then the argument would be are doing it right by allowing the person to do things which are wrong just because we don’t want to hurt the person. Is the philosophy of Rights and Wrongs so relative and based on persons concerned in the act? Does love not act as a sufficient enough reason and motivation to correct the wrong in the person we love?
Is love supposed to be devoid of our own ideals, judgments and reasoning? If yes, then can we say that the person owns us completely, when we are actually living a dual life?.

Is love that we achieve from a person really worth the dual life we give him/her on their face? Without giving the complete sense of ourselves to the person we love, how can we be HONEST to them to our own conscience? Love, should be treated with the respect it deserves and not with such a duality of purpose where we use it for our own convenience and for keeping the world at large happy..

The second argument is again: What’s wrong in seeking comfort? In a sense that if my swindling on this side is going to ensure me a great future ahead, why not compromise a little on part of my principles. And many of us will say - “who cares for principles these days” Its best forgotten..

Well, there is nothing wrong in seeking comfort and neither wrong if we are looking for our won interest. But should we always resort to turn a blind eye to our conscious? We may not realize it fully but someday when we sit back and think about the days that have gone past, we will realize that there were so many wrong things that we would have done because it was convenient to do so. In the pretext of “seeking comfort” we follow a convenient route without a second thought if we one day become of victim of this “culture of convenience”, when some one would leave us midway in the name of “I acted based on my comfort”, its then we realize the “culture” we had practiced and propagated..

The third one would be let’s have peace everywhere. At this seems to be the mantra of all the modern day martyrs. Disagreements are now being termed as “quarrelsome, irksome”. Where one’s right does not seem to be “freedom of speech” but one’s right seems to be to “shut up” because we don’t want ourselves caught in any side. Where it is better to stand neutral and let the world decides whether it’s going to live or die. Where we decide “Not to act”, and take the pleasure of saying “I am not involved”, “I don’t have an opinion”. Sometimes this makes me wonder, where the world would end if every one of us wash our hands from the responsibility of making a decision based on our own opinion. Was the education given to us worth of only this?
They are many more arguments that will come forth; I have just mentioned the few that I have experienced. It is tough to stand by your principles. It is hard to be honest to ourselves. Feels like such a contradiction right? We talk of being honest, only with respect to others, without a question, are we being honest to ourselves , our conscience. The journey ahead for me seems to be very tough… Because challenges that remain unexplored are “how to decide what is right based on my limited knowledge, experience?”.

The other day I saw a Bollywood movie “Damini”, yes of course lot of clichés in it. But its one dialogue that seems to uplift the movie to a different level… It’s the dialogue by the judge….when he says that “Mahatma Gandhiji has told that our conscience is the first judge and then we are right in our conscience we will do everything to fight the odds that come against our belief”..

I will only strive to be right always to my conscience in whatever I do. Rest must be taken care of…