Everything happens for a reason…

I have always wondered if everything in life happens for a reason. I am not sure of it but increasingly tend to believe it. Let me share a few incidents in my life, which makes me believe so. One may call it providence, destiny or even coincidence. For me, it does not matter. What matters is that everything in life happens for a reason. I think it is nature’s way of balancing our life.

I could start from my childhood. I opted for science subjects in school because my parents wanted me to do so. Then I was advised to appear for engineering since that was the “in” thing to do in my childhood. I did not get admission in any engineering college. So, I was persuaded to do my graduation in science. After my graduation, I had the courage to convince my parents that I wanted to pursue my post graduation in human resources. So, in my view, my not getting admission in engineering was a blessing in disguise as otherwise, I may not have got the opportunity to study what I wanted in life.

Then I got a job in a leading automobile ancillary in Chennai, which is my hometown based on my summer internship in that company. However, within a week of joining I got an offer from a leading public sector undertaking and my father advised me to take up that offer as it was prestigious to join the public sector those days as compared to the private sector and my father had served the government service for more than three decades. This photo along with my colleagues was taken at Durg station within a few months of joining this company.

Today, if I look back it was possibly one of the best decisions in my life. It not only laid the foundation for my career but also shook me out of my comfort zone and made me brave enough to face the world. There has been no looking back since then in my career. I have lived and worked in the north, south, east, west and centre of India and this has made me an adaptive human being and so are my kids. They have moved around the country and can easily adapt to different cities, environment and other conditions of living.

My first posting was in an iron ore mine in the steel plant. It was a God forsaken place although naturally beautiful and surrounded by hills. I cursed my luck when I was posted there since I did not have a choice. It was the policy in the steel plant that all management trainees had to have the first posting in one of the three captive mines of the steel plant. I was lucky that I got posted to the largest of the three mines.

If I look back again, it was possibly the best way to start my career in human resources. We had multiple unions and were threatened by gheraos and strikes every other month. This helped me ground myself and learn the true value of fairness in work. It hardened me as a professional and today I can confidently say that I am game to face any tough situation because of my learning in those first three years of my career.

When I started my career with the steel plant I thought I would retire from there and settle down in my home town after my retirement. However, life took me to multiple cities and different states as I have changed jobs four times since then. Each change has been a new beginning and an opportunity to work in different environments and learn. I have had my own quota of ups and downs in my life and career but life has taught me with each incident.

Today when I look back at my career, I am grateful for all that happened in my life. I am thankful to all the managers, colleagues and team members, who had moulded me to what I am today. After all these experiences, I have started believing that everything in life does happen for a reason. It is up to us to make the best of the experience life offers to you. It is up to us to view the glass as half full or half empty.

As a born optimist, I have always seen life’s glass as half full. Hence, every incident has been a great learning experience. What is your experience ?

S Ramesh Shankar

A day in my life at Mumbai


My weekend begins like any other day at around 6 am with a cup of fresh brewed coffee. We pray to God and listen to devotional songs and infuse our home with the fragrance of incense sticks.

We then proceed for our daily walk in the park.  We are lucky to just cross our road and there is this beautiful green park along the Arabian Sea.  We go around the garden for about four rounds and use this opportunity to chat about all our family members and their well being.  We are greeted by the melodies of the birds and the soothing music of the sea waves. We also have interesting exchanges of men and women we meet in the park and have given them nick names to identify them.

On alternate weeks, we go for an Ayurvedic massage to tone up our body muscles and detoxify ourselves after a long working week behind us.  We go together for this too and have been doing so for more than a decade now.

We then return home and do our routine yoga for about half an hour.  This is followed by a simple vegetarian breakfast like idli or poha and reading the morning newspaper at leisure.  We exchange news items we have read and share common interests we have in the city or around the world.  Then it is time to attend to household chores.  It is interesting that the division of work between me and my spouse has been quite clear and consistent since the time we got married 33 years ago.  I take care of all the household chores outside the house like shopping for provisions, vegetables or repair of household goods etc.  My wife takes care of all issues at home.  Of course we are happy to help each other in case the need arises like the sudden leave of the house hold maid etc.  We have always respected each others’ likes and dislikes and hence supported accordingly.  For eg, my spouse does not enjoy driving and hence I drive always.  On the other hand, I do not enjoy cooking and hence she does it.  Of course, if there is a need we are willing to support each other in these chores as well.

On some days, we go for a day trip organised by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) or indulge in writing poetry or blogs as both of us have our own individual hobbies. A visit to a nature park is of common interest.  We love to admire birds, trees and animals and follow the experts of the BNHS quite regularly whenever time permits.  Alternatively, we indulge in writing as our passion dictates us.  We also help each other as editors and critiques of whatever we write.

It is also true that I love to go for a weekend trip whenever I can, to be with nature as in the photo above near Tarkarli, a beach resort near Goa.

We always prefer to have home made lunch consisting of rice, lentils, vegetables and yoghurt.  We watch the news or some car show on TV and then it is time for an afternoon nap.  It is followed by evening tea and snacks.  This is followed by some cleaning and clearing work at home and browsing through some magazines or books, which we may collected during the week before.

Then the evening begins by another stroll in the park to admire the sunset and get refreshed by nature.  We return home for our early supper.  This is followed generally by a music programme on TV or a sports match like cricket.

We watch the evening news at 9 pm and this is followed by some documentaries or business shows of relevance and then it is time to go to bed.  We love to listen to soothing ghazals or instrumental music at night as we go to sleep.

Our day ends at about 1030 pm and we end the day by thanking God and everyone else for a wonderful day.

S Ramesh Shankar

Our five senses

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As human beings, we are born with five senses. They are sense of touch, hearing, smell, sight and taste. Today we are losing our sense of senses. I do not know the real reasons for the same but may be worth exploring. We need to revive our senses. They not only help us lead a more fulfilling life but will help us add joy to the life of others. The increasing lack of senses is making us live senseless, in society.

Let us start with the sense of touch. Can any of us forget the warmth of a mother’s hug on a day we are feeling low ? This touch is magical. It seems to cure us of everything. It helps us get over our sorrow. It re-energises us to bounce back in life. We get consoled without even a word being spoken. Today we hug each other in the social media and are shy to hug in real life. This is not only because we do not have time to meet each other in person but feel it is less socially respectful to hug someone. Lets give a hug to a person in distress and experience the magical effect on their well being.

If we move to the sense of hearing, it is equally magical. One would always long to be with family members or friends, who are active listeners. We generally tend to speak more than we listen. Let us listen to kids at home, colleagues at work as if our listening will change their world. We can experience that the richness in our relationship becomes qualitatively better to the quality of our listening. Here again, one need not go far away from home to learn. In most of our cases, our parents are good listeners and we have failed to learn from them.

Today we do not have the time to enjoy the fragrance of nature. If we go on a morning walk, the smell of the jasmine, plumeria or parijatam can transcend us to a different world. But, most of us either do not go for a morning walk or jog or cannot recognise and enjoy the smell of these beautiful flowers. This is partly due to our lack of time and supplemented by pollution and lack of flowering trees in our environs. We seem to be losing of ability to sense the smell of flowers around us. If our eyes are blind folded and we are asked to identify different flowers by their smell, many of us may fail to do so and may blame choked noses for the same.

We are also losing our sense of sight. Today, we see only what we want to see. We may not be colour blind by birth but are unable to sport all the colours in the beautiful world because of our lack of sight. Many of us may not have the time to enjoy the shades of the rainbow and explain the Indigo to our kids. We do not get up to the colourful hues of the sky during sun rise or have the time to do so at sunset. We do not have time for holidays to spot animals and birds of different colours and breeds.

Last but not the least is our sense of taste. We seem to have become bland in our taste. We have our breakfast , lunch and dinner in a hurry and also while watching TV or playing on our phone. We do not have time to sit back and enjoy our food. We cannot distinguish between different food varieties and enjoy the diversity of food of different states in our country. If we are blind folded and asked to identify the taste of different ice cream flavours, we may fail to do so.

Life has indeed become senseless – literally and figuratively. But, whom should we blame for this state of affairs. Can we blame our ancestors or our parents ? Can we blame the society or community around us ? It is time to realize that we need to blame ourselves and nobody around us. We are responsible for this pathetic state of our senses.

In a park ( like in the photo above), you can get in touch with all your senses.

It makes sense to revive our senses to day

S Ramesh Shankar