Subhechha Mitra - Sharing a journey

Oh my God! How did we even get here?! If a year back somebody would have told me that my life would be where it is today, I would have freaked out! It's a good thing that we can't see the future. Noting down the 26 things I learnt in 25 years of my journey. 1. Childhood is more important than we give it credit for. A lot of the issues that we face as adults actually stem from the very little instances of our childhood that were just too insignificant, back at that time 2. Every now and then we should take out some time to heal any wounds that our inner child carries. Any childhood trauma, big or small, which looks petty at the time might come back to haunt, years later. We immerse ourselves in work or distract our minds but it is only a temporary escape. Tending to a scar, healing is sacrosanct 3. Not everything your parents or elders or mentors or idols or friends tell you is true.  Because you have your own reality and that would not be identical with anybody else's, i

Understanding my self-worth did not come easy to me. Every time I thought I understood the concept, I was tested by circumstances and I failed. But the beauty is, life doesn't stop testing you until you pass it successfully.  Basis my experience so far, I have come to believe that self-worth stems from self-love . So, I have watched a zillion self-love videos, movies on empowerment, read motivational quotes, heard songs and speeches. Yet every time I had to prove my love for myself, I just didn't make it through. You could say that it is a price, that people who were brought up to be kind , pay.  It roots from the very time when I wasn't allowed to switch on the lights when the elder men in my family were sleeping in a room that had the full-length mirror, even if I needed to get ready for school. It roots from the time when the ladies in my family always kept the bigger pieces of the fish or meat or larger share of a delicacy, for the men and children (they did it voluntar

You confuse me. I dislike you for a zillion things you do but I cannot deny my love for you.  You are all the things I don't want to be or want my spouse to be, but I wouldn't be the best version of me if it weren't for you.  You wouldn't let me touch your steering wheels or teach me how to drive. No matter how much that irks me, you are my favourite-est person to go on drives with...not because you are just the best at it, but you look forward to my playlist as much I take pleasure in listening to my favourite numbers in your kickass car stereo and we end up humming the same tunes. Even a fool could fool you but how can I ever question your wisdom with the kind of woman you chose to marry. You are the weirdest son but the best son in law. You don't like seeing me pluck my eyebrows, wax my limbs, plank the fat out of my body or as much as extract my blackheads as you know it hurts me. But you know there are a lot of bigger battles that I have had to fight on my own.

I don't consider myself to be the ideal friend. Not something to be proud of but I am glad that my Sheldon Cooper-ish eccentricities found me few but just the right people I can call my buddies. And today is a BIG day for four of my childhood and best buddies! AK completed his Masters' from SRH University, Germany. Thank God for technology, I could virtually attend his convocation via a live stream. Having witnessed his journey till here, cannot tell you how proud it made me feel to see him deliver his convocation speech on the dais today, almost-teary eyed. ( I remember how I sobbed like a child when nobody attended my convocation. It was like this big dream that never got fulfilled. But it felt really nice to be there for somebody else and live my dream through his 😊 )   After months and months of hard work, AB earned an opportunity for a collaborative PhD with DRDO in NIT Rourkela. I have seen him undergo the entire process to make it till here and I tell you it is a real

This is it. This is IT! No matter how hard you try to run away, you cannot escape your fears. You can try harder but the universe eventually makes you see that you were actually running in circles, and you will continue to do so until you face your fears.  Personally, every time I said that I was afraid of something, sooner or later circumstances made me confront the exact same thing. Every single time. Right now, I am standing in front of the last fear of the almost-ended first quarter of my life innings (too much positivity thinking I'll score a century eh?!). By now, I know that the more I try running away from it, the more I will delay my dibs on abundance. But knowing is easy, taking the leap of faith isn't.  I have been through this same process for the other fears of my life. Hence, this was supposed to be a little easier. Maybe it is, 'cause although I have started pulling back so I can push forth harder, I still have my sanity much in place unlike earlier times (#f

"We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far." - Swami Vivekananda  We think about a gazillion things in a day. Often we don't put much effort in 'thinking our thoughts through'. 😀 But of late, I have been witnessing the power of thoughts like never before. I have come to believe that we are what we think we are and we do become what we think we can or cannot! When we think about something repetitively, consciously or unconsciously, chances are for it to get manifested into our reality as well.  It is a simple chronology really, you think - you want, you want - you act, you act - you become. So s ay, if you are constantly worried or afraid of losing something or someone, you might actually end up making it happen no matter how much you want it not to. Or, say our years' of collective thoughts on how cool it would be if we just got the option to work from home full time, has now

Pedestals are meant for fans, not people. Life would be so much easier if we just stopped putting people on pedestals.  "He is a father, he can't be doing that" or "She is a wife, she is not supposed to do that" - We have all thought about it at some point in time. But it becomes a whole lot easier if we could detach them from the roles they play in our lives and see them as just another man or a woman, another human being or another soul, on a journey. On a journey that is his or her own, entirely.  S/He is supposed to slip, here and there. S/He is supposed to choose, wrong or right. S/He is allowed to mistakes as long as s/he is learning from them. All these learnings will shape her/him up for the person he was always meant to be. Guide. Support. Accept. Reject. Embrace. Be kind. Be an empath. Be a contributor/part of his/her journey. But don't judge or generalize or rationalize. Life is no one-size-fits-all. Because one is on a journey, that is entirely

Born here. Brought up too. 18 long years of memories post which I moved out of this quarter, the first that my father was allotted after taking up the job. The place I call HOME. . These quarters were some of the oldest constructions made for the company that my father works for. Our place is a zoo. Actually, all the quarters in the colony are one of each and this makes for one of the hottest topics of discussion for neighbours and office-goers alike. Having stayed away from home for many years now, all the things that are wrong with this place become more visible day by day, as I outstay, unlike my usual visits. More trees than the number of people around. More insects and animals than the family members occupying each house. Squirrels and wolves, peacocks and frogs, snails and pigs, sparrows and chameleons - you name it, we have it! 😀 It's the next level of adventure and fun but comes with a repetitive reminder on how we should've moved out of this tiny place to a bigger one

The last time I went on a proper vacation was in 2008. 🙅 It was always about first pre-boards, first boards, last pre-boards, last boards, figuring-out-my-life-in-graduation, being-industry-ready-internships, okay-let's-do-this-one-last-time-post-graduation, now-or-never-placements . Actually, I did not even wait for the completion of my course. I got myself a job just after a month into the final semester. It was hard, really really hard. Keeping up with what was happening in classes, preparing for the exams till dawn, taking those exams till noon, resuming office in the second half and E-N-C-O-R-E. By the time I reached home, I would be dead. I remember breaking down one day, on my way back from office, but I did pick myself up and kept going in the hope for better days I was destined to see. I kept going, without a single break.  Once into the job, the most I could afford was to save my handful of vacation leaves for annual home-trips, mostly around Pujo ( Bangali priorities 😃

It has been quite some time that I have been working in the PR industry. Story-telling and making conversation should be my strongest suits. That is bread and butter for Comms people. However, every time anyone asks me what I do for a living, I find myself in a very awkward position - trying to look for the perfect answer.  Say if you are an engineer, people wouldn't probably get into your KRAs. But, when you say you've studied media/mass communication, first off it is taken for a fact that you're a journalist. I, myself, had come to know of the various other scopes of the stream like advertising, PR, media planning and buying etc. much later while graduating. Now, the moment I say that I work in a Public Relations firm, most people want to know more about it because it looks like a fancy foreign concept that is unheard of. My usual resort is to say that I propagate and sustain the goodwill of my clients. Then they ask me how do you do it and I would say - usually through t