A night in the life of an ATM guard...

Recently I happen to go to an ATM around 0200 hrs to withdraw some cash for an emergency. The guard at the ATM was dozing off, suddenly on hearing the noise of my vehicle he woke up and saluted me. I guess he wasnt expecting anyone at the ATM at that hour. He had to do his duty at least in front of a customer(just kidding), he pretended to be well awake and attentive.

I asked him before leaving the ATM that, dont people come at this hour? How does he manage to spent the night alone? Recently there was an article in the newspaper that few people tried breaking in an ATM machine to steal the cash. They had hurt the ATM guard badly. I asked does not that incident scare him?

The guard said that "life hain tho jina hi parega, kuch bhi ho duty tho karna hi pargea". I said keep up the attitude man. We then shared a smoke and I left for my place. I could not help but wonder,life teaches us so many things in a discreet way, its upto us to grab them.

Why firangmania still lingers on with Indians?

It is utterly depressing to see the way Indians stare at the firangs with a sense of obeisance, awe and strangeness. It seems the hangover of colonial past is still not over in India even though it is almost sixty years since we became independent. One should look at any security guard when a firang passes him, he would salute him in such a way that the 'SAHIB' feeling of colonial era is still intact. Just try counting the number of people staring at firangs at any public place, I am sure you would lose the count soon.It is not just at any public place but even at malls, theatres in metro cities. Anything with the firang touch becomes fashionable in India, even though there are things in India which were made fashionable by them like yoga, spirituality to Indians.

This is despicable, I am not telling we should be xenophobic or jingoistic but we must take pride in being Indians. Until we hold ourselves in a respectable way, the world wont respect us.

Is career planning an oxymoron?

I believe career planning is an oxymoron for sure. To substantiate my claim I have this data in front of me:

Out of world's top ten billionaires
Five are college dropouts -
No. 1: William Henry Gates III - Harvard University, dropout
No. 3: Sheldon Adelson - City College of New York, dropout
No. 4: Lawrence Joseph Ellison - University of Illinois, dropout
No. 5: Paul Gardner Allen - Washington State University, dropout
No. 9 (tie): Michael Dell - University of Texas Austin, dropout

Though this isnt a conclusive piece of evidence, but yea a very strong piece of evidence. When I see around me the white collar workers working for one of these dropout bosses incessantly, I question myself they had their career planned then why the hell are they working for some dropout? Did the dropouts learn something miraculous ,when these workers wasted time in the classrooms?

We do have examples of successful people who had their career planned, but they succeeded when it was mostly unplanned or loosely planned.Does it make my belief true that career planning is an oxymoron?

Is perfect life an illusion or a possibility?

I could not heip myself but wonder, what is perfect life, an illusion or a real possibility? I had a good upbringing along with good education and good friends. I have a good job and hopefully I would have a good life ahead. Are thet all the ingredients of a perfect life or do I need some more things to make my life a perfect one?

I am too confused, but candidly speaking I dont think I am even in the close vicinity of perfect life.I think its a state of mind that makes one believe when his life can be called perfect. So may be one day I would also feel that my life is perfect.