He Finally Became Responsible

Manav was the youngest among his three brothers and as it often happens, he continued to be babied by everyone even when he had reached adulthood. He was pampered and adored by his parents and siblings so much that he grew up to be casual about life. He had got used to being treated as a prince so much that he believed he didn't have to do anything ever to earn a living and that his father and his brothers earned enough to meet everyone's needs. His father Seth Dhanpath Rai was a wealthy businessman but he had wanted all of his sons to carve their own futures, to stand on their own feet, to be independent. While he was happy with the progress that his sons had made in their lives, he wasn't too happy with Manav's attitude towards life and his career. He realised what a blunder he had committed by never giving any responsibility to Manav while he was still young. All of his other brothers had chosen their own ways and were already earning whereas Manav spent all his time at home doing nothing. He was never really interested in studies anyway but somehow managed to complete his graduation. However he didn't like the idea of doing a job - working for someone else. He would always find one excuse or the other for not attending a job interview that his father would have arranged for him.

However things slowly began to change when his brother got married and their wives came into the family. Since Manav didn't do any work, no body took him seriously. They would often overlook and ignore him. He did feel hurt at times but never enough to start doing something. He needed a hard blow from life and he got that when his father suffered a heart-stroke and his body got partially paralysed. Thus he remained bedridden and the people whom Dhanpath Rai had always trusted, cheated him. Taking advantage of the situation, they usurped his entire business. If that was not enough, suddenly even the attitude of his own sons (barring Manav) and his daughter-in-laws changed over-night. Instead of staying together during the time of crisis, they decided to divide their father's wealth among themselves so that after taking their share, they could go and live separately. However they left no share for Manav as they felt he had never worked or earned anything to deserve a share in the property. They weren't ready to take the responsibility of their ailing father either and assigned that duty to Manav. Thus Manav and his parents were left with only the house that his father had built for them.

His father's illness coupled with his brother's selfishness shook him up badly. He felt cheated by his brothers's attitude, not because they didn't give him a share in the property but because he could never imagine that his own brothers would turn out to be so selfish as to leave their ailing father on his own! But instead of dwelling over it, he took it upon himself to look after his parents. He chose to become responsible for them as well for himself. Immediately he started looking for a job but without much luck. Since he was totally inexperienced, he always met with disappointment. No one even gave him a chance to prove himself. Still he didn't give up and continued searching for a job. The first job that he got was that of a helper at a cloth factory. Though his work entailed menial tasks for which he was given quite a low pay, but he didn't complain. He worked hard at it anyway but he was still looking for a permanent job. Finally after much struggle, he landed up with a fairly good job, that of a store-keeper at a bookshop. The salary that was promised to him was only decent enough but more than the money, he was happy to have a fresh start. He worked there sincerely for about five years but then he decided that it was time for him to start his own business. While working at the book-shop, he had learned quite a bit about the business and he had also managed to save some money from his salary every month in all those years. So using his savings and taking a loan from the bank, he rented an office space and started his own book cafe - a bookshop-cum-coffee shop! He continued to work hard and it didn't take long for the cafe to become a huge success. His parents too were very happy to see their son become so responsible.

Thus it's never too late to start from scratch. If one really works hard at it, success is bound to come.

Image used - www.pixshark.com

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FXdCjk505w]
(This has been written for "Start a new life" for Housing.com. Visit their website www.housing.com to know more about them)

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Honest hearts produce honest actions

Ever since I came over to Bangalore some ten months back to take up the new job, I haven't been able to visit my parents. Work has kept me really busy. My parents were feeling very troubled as to whether their only son was happy in his new dwelling or not. They were eager to see through their own eyeshow the city was treating me, especially Maa. She was concerned about my food and my health more than anything else. I would often have a hard time in convincing her about the quality of the hotel food that the caterer delivers to me, during our telephone chats. She always had the same questions to ask - whether their food tasted good enough and whether they prepared the meals in hygenic conditions. And then she would raise the marriage topic, how my life would change for the better and I wouldn't have to suffer eating from outside if I brought a wife into my life while I would try hard to evade the topic. Our arguments would continue until she would finally end the call.

But then her worst fears came true when I fell ill with severe food poisoning after eating the dhaba's food. My parents got worried when they came to learn about my illness, as there was no one to look after me. So both Maa and Baba set out for Bangalore immediately, the next morning. I have to admit that news about their scheduled arrival did bring some succour to my heart as ever since I got bed-ridden with my illness, I was not only feeling very lonely but actually was also finding it difficult to take care of myself, although some friends used to visit me every now and then. But I was also worried about my parents travelling so far away. They hadn't travelled long distances for quite some years owing to their knee problems and they were coming to Bangalore for the first time.

Thankfully their train wasn't late by much as Baba called me up to inform me. I insisted on going to the station to bring them home but they outrightly turned me down, saying that they could hire a taxi and that I need not worry. After an hour or so, I heard my door bell ring and as I opened the door, they were there before me, safe and sound. My sickness suddenly vanished away the moment I hugged them. We were meeting after ten months and so we had a lot to say to each other. But they were dead tired too after the two day long train journey. So while Baba went to take a shower, Maa immediately got busy in preparing a meal for all of us. None of us had realised until then that they had absent-mindedly left one of their suitcases in the taxi. It was only after Baba came out of the bathroom and started looking for that suitcase to take out his clothes did we realise that it had got left behind in the cab. Baba was distraught because along with the clothes, it also contained our ancestral property papers that he brought along.

Just then the door bell rang once again. When I opened it, I found a smiling man standing before me who was holding the suitcase.
"Uncle, you had left your suitcase by mistake and I only saw it when I opened the dicky of my cab. Though I remembered that i had dropped you off at this apartment but I had no idea about your flat number. Luckily I also found the small piece of paper on the back seat, the one that you were holding and I found your address written on it", said the cab driver.

My parents felt really grateful to him and so was I. We tried to persuade him to accept some cash as the fare for his trip that he took the second time around but he politely refused, saying that helping others is priceless and that he was happy that the luggage finally found its rightful owner.

This simple incident goes on to show that there are still decent men living in this world, who are so honest that they go out of their way to doggedly track down the owner of a misplaced article and hand it over to him.

Image used - www.smartambala.com

(This has been written for "Look up story" for Housing.com. Visit their website www.housing.com to know more about them)

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A Memorable Day

It is impossible to imagine life without friends, for without them, life would be meaningless. Friends play a major role in our lives. Everyone would perhaps agree with me that good friends make our lives richer. Our family may have the biggest influence on our lives but perhaps there can't be a better teacher in life than friendship. Among all other things, it is our friends who teach us how to build relationships with other people. I consider myself really lucky to be blessed with some really good friends, who have always stood by me, both during my good times as well as during my bad times. No matter how old we get, but close friends remain dear to us all through our life, they are people we can always count on. In one way or the other, our closest friends would have surely had some positive influence on our lives. I feel lucky to have got one such friend in Pramod. We have been friends since our school days. He is one such friend who truly cares for me. He has always stayed with me through thick and thin and even when he isn't physically present, he has always extended his moral support whenever I have needed him. I have lost count of the number of times when he has steadied me just as I was about to stumble. I remember how demoralized I had become when I couldn't clear the Medical entrance examination. I had sort of locked myself up in a cocoon and had lost all zeal for life. It was he who motivated me and helped me rise up again. I can never thank him enough. Thus even a few minutes spent with him gives me a lifetime of wonderful memories.

But unfortunately as we get older, we get so bogged down by various responsibilities and duties and life gets so busier that we no longer find time to even meet our old friends as we once used to do. Sometimes we get so entangled with our familial responsibilities that we fail to even make calls to our friends as often. Thus gradually the number of calls and meetings start diminishing and before we know, we get somewhat distanced away from our friends. However this isn't exactly inevitable, rather it can be prevented.

When we are in the company of an old friend, even a mundane activity seems so exciting and every meeting becomes a memorable one. I had one such recent experience when I had gone to my native place for a few days. Ever since we moved to different cities for professional reasons some seven years back, I hadn't met Pramod, though we used to catch up on each other on social networks and through occasional phone calls. But this time, to our luck, both of us were in our native city at the same time. Pramod too had come on a vacation to meet his family. Thus when we got to know about each other's presence in the city, we didn't need any invitation to meet each other at the earliest.

It is said that there are two types of friends in life - the kind that makes us feel like it has changed over time, and the second kind being the one which makes us feel like nothing has changed even after so many years of remaining away from each other. Pramod belongs to the second category. Even though we were meeting each other after seven long years, but time couldn't affect our friendship. We had decided to visit our old meeting point - our college canteen, where we used to spend our leisure time laughing, gossiping and chatting inconsequential matters that had no relevance. Though a whole lot had changed about the place over the years but when we sat down across the farthest corner table to have the regular Raghu chai, the old memories started flashing before our eyes, the things we did back then, how we used to have so much of fun, how we used to sometimes bunk the lectures and instead would go for movies and when we used to get caught, how we used to cover for each other before our teachers and parents, how we used to comfort each other on being chided by our parents for not scoring enough marks in exams and how we used to sometimes cycle all the way to Dhauli to sit on the banks of river Daya, just to watch the sun set.  That is exactly what we again did that day. Though we couldn't find cycles (moreover, given our age, we wouldn't have probably managed to reach Dhauli by cycles), but we rode on our bikes to the Daya river and spent a good long minutes on the river bank watching the sunset and clicking photos. While returning back, we also stopped by Raghu bhaina's dahi bara alu dum shop and ate to our heart's content as we used to do during our younger days. Any day spent with Pramod is special for me but this day had something extra-special in it, in that for a few moments, we let go of all inhibitions and felt like we had once again become little kids. I wish the day hadn't ended at all. Sadly we couldn't spend another day together as he had his return flight to catch to go back to the United States. But I am sure time will bless with more such together moments in the future as well and our friendship shall remain as strong as ever. That day we created some truly golden memories to last a lifetime!

Image used - www.imagesbuddy.com

(This has been written for "Being Together" for Housing.com. Visit their website www.housing.com to know more about them)

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Asus Zenfone 2 would redefine my smart phone experience!

Though I am not really a gadget freak but I have been thinking about buying a new smartphone for sometime now. This Blackberry phone that I am currently using is almost three years old now and needs to be replaced with a new smartphone. Though my current smartphone had stood me in good stead all this while, but then in this era of advanced mobile technology and with so many fascinating mobile phones coming into the market, one does gets tempted to buy a new smartphone. Moreover, the prices too have come down drastically. Also since the last two years or so, the mobile companies have pushed the boundaries in terms of endowing the smartphones with rich features. Thus the smartphones have continued to get bigger and faster, and now come blessed with a whole lot of never-seen-before features.

So while I was browsing through some exciting smartphones on a few popular online shopping portals, I got to know about the upcoming launch of the new smartphone from Asus India - Asus Zenfone 2. I visited the parent website Asus India and studied closely the features and specifications of the phone, and in no time, I made up my mind to buy it as my new smartphone. The phone's stylish and sleek look grabbed my attention at the first glance itself. However not just lookwise but also with its rich and advanced features, it won my heart. With the wealth of so many exciting new features that the Zenfone 2 is providing, I am sure this smartphone will redefine a person's smartphone experience!

1. Luxurious Ultra-Thin Ergonomic Arc Design
Among the wealth of exciting new features that ASUS ZenFone 2 provides, it is the sleek and stylish outer look that catches one's attention, what with its brushed-metal finish and its graceful tapering of the Ergonomic Arc case that results in a thickness of just 3.9 mm, makes it look not just bold but also very elegant. The design engineers have smartly innovated and have positioned a volume-control at the rear as well as a shutter button, ideally to be pressed by our index finger. Also with its 5.5-inch Full HD IPS display, it gives one an incredible 403ppi pixel density on the screen and so one gets the maximized viewing experience. Now me being a movie buff, such a remarkably big display screen would result in a fabulous movie-viewing experience!

2. Powerful Performer
Being powered by 2.3GHz 64-bit Intel Atom Z3580 processor and a 4GB RAM, Asus ZenFone 2 is surely going to prove to be a powerful performer, not just for day-to-day phone activities but also in terms of gaming performance. Given its powerful processor, one will be ensured of smooth video playback, web surfing and great gaming experiences. Multi-tasking too I am sure won't be uncomfortable.

3. 13 Mega-pixel Rear Camera and a 5MP Front camera
Another strong feature that I very much liked in ZenFone 2 was that it is coming with a 13 Mega-pixel Rear Camera and a 5MP Front camera. Also since they come with f/2.0-aperture lens, so the smartphone will be able to capture really good and high-resolution photos without any shutter lag. The smartphone's Low Light mode uses pixel-merging technology because of which I will be able to capture brighter photos (up to 400%) at night or in low-light situations, without even using the flash option. The phone is also enriched with a Super HDR. Being a traveller, the phone camera will come in handy whenever I would be wishing to capture a snap.

4. Asus Zen UI that is simpler and smarter
Zenfone 2 also comes with a brand-new ZenUI that results in some awesome features like ZenMotion, SnapView, Trend Micro Security, ZenUI Instant Updates etc. Thus now we will have a seamless mobile experience that would include an enhanced usability, security and privacy.

5. Aus BoostMaster Technology
Because of the ASUS BoostMaster technology, this Zenfone 2 would get charged much faster, Probably it would take only about 39 minutes to charge almost 60% of the battery! This is one of the biggest advantages that Zenfone 2 provides. Because we have had quite a few other smartphones which were stunning to look at but could barely last even a half a day! We may be having a smartphone blessed with a whole lot of features and a big HD display as well but if the battery doesn’t last very long or takes a lot of time to charge up, we won't even be able to watch a movie on the go.
Thus with so many powerful and innovative features, I am sure that Asus Zenfone 2 will redefine our smart phone experience and will usher in happy times for the smartphone users in the coming days.

(Image courtesy: Asus India)

(This has been written for "Redefine your smart phone experience!" for Asus Zenfone 2)

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