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26 January 2021… it must have been my second group ride. I met Nitin Pathak sir again that day. I had met him on the 1 st January ride but for a brief period of time. While we were departing for our respective homes, he asked me to join him for a ride. “At what time do you go for the ride?” “6:30.” “Join me tomorrow. Instead of 6:30, get up a bit earlier, and let us begin at 6.” I agreed and the next morning, we went on a ride. We were four and while returning, we stopped at this roadside dhaba for a delicious breakfast of poha and tea. While we were generally discussing long rides, I said that the presence of professionals in the group would inspire the group to do more. That instant Pathak sir responded, “We can very well do all these things by ourselves. It is not at all difficult. Let us ride a 100 KM distance. What say?” The idea was thrilling. For me, it would mean my first ever 100 km ride. I suggested Pathak sir that we should go in February considering that all of u...

Can you imagine yourself relaxing in a café sipping your favourite cappuccino a day before a national level, life-deciding exam? Almost all will answer in a big NOOOOOOOOOO. This requires an ultimate level of determination and not letting the goal out of sight. All of this isn’t hard because all of it requires two things: consistency and self-discipline. After all, the gap between the life you should be living and the life you are living is because of self-discipline. This is not just applicable to academics but to any field. If you want to excel, you have to give in every part of your flesh and blood, all of your mental and physical attention, and of course, sacrifice many things in order to get to it… I am lucky to have witnessed students who did all the above things to succeed. Their parents and I had to tell them to stop studying because they had done sufficiently enough. When a student has put in so much of himself to achieve a goal, only then he can chill in the café just a d...

  Ever been excited about a wedding? Hell, yes! Ever been excited for the return journey… umm… what? Well, the year was 2018. The month was February. My best friend was getting married. I was invited. It was a destination wedding in Goa. Usually Goa is famous because “Goa ke plans kabhi successful hue hai kya?” and this has stood true to the test of time. Well, this plan of mine was happening. Being a teacher, I find it difficult to move freely throughout the year but February brings some relief. Students were preparing for their exams, I was done teaching the syllabus and was easily managing practice paper schedule. Still, I didn’t have time to stay in Goa after the wedding. And that is how I ended up booking my first ever flight ticket. Wow! I couldn’t believe it. I was finally going to travel by plane. The happiness was elevated because I had booked the ticket with my own income. I had earned the happiness myself. I went to Goa. Attended the wedding and mind you, it was to...

Today’s blog post is a real incident of my life. I started teaching in 2016. In 2017, I almost let go of the opportunity that brought me to where I am. This is about realising that there are hints which you must take seriously in order to not miss an opportunity. In my case, luck favoured me. Here’s what had happened: A year after starting classes, I got good feedback from the limited students I had. Students, as well as their parents, were happy with the classes. Unfortunately, there was no growth. Despite the feedback, I had a limited number of students. As a young man of 25, I couldn’t afford this growth rate. I was not expecting a flooded classroom but considering the feedback, at least double the strength of the existing students. After contemplating about the same, I decided to stop teaching the students of CBSE board. I had to say ‘no’ to them and it was one of the toughest decisions I had to take back then. I was highly anxious about telling this to the existing students....

Nature is a great teacher. If we look around ourselves and do not learn from nature, we must be blind to ignore the lessons of the omnipresent. While every single petal, every single leaf is a lesson in itself, one lesson that appeals to me the most is the lesson of the gulmohar tree. Here is a story: He was scolded by his parents for disrupting his sleep cycle. He felt dejected. He felt angry. He didn’t want to wait for a single second in the house. He didn’t want to let his parents know that he would be away for some time. Grabbing the key of his scooter, he softly closed the door and left. To make sure his parents don’t notice anything, he pulled his scooter to the end of the lane, and when out of earshot, he switched on the ignition. After god knows how much time of riding, he spotted a field. It was nearly 6pm and the sun’s rays looked like melted gold on the green grass. He parked his scooter and sat down under a gulmohar tree. He looked up at the six feet tall tree. His eyes gli...

It has been a year that I have taken to cycling. At this point, I would like to share how I got into it. Many would obviously guess that I started cycling for weight loss and considering the way I look now, it is but natural to guess so. But honestly, I started cycling because my mother wanted my life to be better! Mothers do have unconditional love and the power of that love is unparalleled. It all started somewhere in June of 2020. My mother consulted an astrologer regarding my future. The astrologer suggested that I should visit a nearby Hanuman Temple for one and a half months. The people who know me know that I am not a fan of God and visiting temples is not my thing. Yet there are some things that a person does for his family. Initially hesitant, I agreed to the above suggestion. This is because it gives them peace of mind about their son’s future. Initially, I went to the temple on my scooter. Given the pandemic, temples were closed. I just had to go, pray from outside and...

Are you expecting some monotonous, repetitive article on comfort zone? Hang on! This is different. Actually, I will share an experience which will tell about how even the small things help us to exit our comfort zone. I have been a staunch advocate of not writing in my books. I don’t mean academic books, those are fine; I am talking about the books we read to gain knowledge of the world like novels and motivational stuff and travelogues and the like. The only mark of ink on my books can be seen on the first page: I sign my book and write the date I bought it on. Other than that, it is clean, I mean, used to be. Ever since I started using the Kindle, I started highlighting lines I liked (Kindle has an option of highlighting lines or words). I realised that I could find them quicker and I could also remember them better after using the feature. The thought started to hover in my brain. I thought that I should use a highlighter while I am reading any book (physical copy) and mark thin...

It has been almost a year to cycling and now I can, with authority, share the habit-building hack with you. No! It is no sorcery but a purely simple method. We generally think that building a habit requires mountain-loads of efforts. This is precisely where we are mistaken. Remember: Motivation is what gets you started and habit is what helps you continue. The moment you get motivated to do something, introspect on how the activity is helping you. Do you feel like doing it repeatedly? Are you motivated every morning? Are you willing to skip? If the answer to the first two questions is “yes” and the last one is “no,” then my friends, you are already a bit ahead from the start line. You have got the needed motivation to start. What next? Continue till it becomes a habit. But, take care of a few things: Habit building requires patience and consistency. Once you start getting the results, continuing the habit will happen naturally. As Mark Manson writes: Habits are an investing mindset...

I have always felt that single roads require more skill to tackle. Recently, I was driving on a single road and the train of thoughts started journeying as I kept munching those miles. The vehicle in the opposite lane was far away and hence, I put my foot on the accelerator to overtake the vehicle in front of me. Just then, another vehicle from behind interrupted my flow and went ahead. On that very road ahead, when I overtook another vehicle, the distance between the vehicle I was overtaking and the one coming from the opposite end was lesser than before. I still managed to do it because the ones ahead of me and in the opposite lane cooperated. At another point, I started overtaking but I was not accelerating fast enough and even though it was safe to overtake, I stopped. If you have experienced any of these things, you must have realised that single roads can’t be managed without the cooperation of others. Of course, not everyone cooperates and you get to see all kinds of drive...

Oh, snap! The snapping sound which you know may have been heard by a lot of people when I broke the snap streak. Hang on! I will start from the start. A few months ago, I installed Snapchat and was kind of enjoying it. I was building long snap streaks with others (mostly my students). For those who don’t know what is a streak on snap: Streaks count how many consecutive days two people have been sending Snaps to each other. Every day they send a Snap their streak gets longer. Basically, it’s like a threat that keeps getting longer and longer. Also, many are very concerned about the continuity of streak. I remember once I had forgotten to send the snap when a student reminded me to put a snap as soon as possible so that the streak doesn’t break. I got bored of snapchat after a while and uninstalling was on my mind. Also, it was consuming quite some of my time throughout the day. The consumed time was spent on looking at snaps of other people (mostly black background photos with some ...

Ever wondered if we are one country or a country of countries? I keep wondering this at times when I put out facts about India’s linguistic angle. India doesn’t have a national language. The thought behind it, I think, is valid too: you can’t really have/enforce a national language when a little more than half the population speaks it. If you look at other countries of the world, the entire country speaks one language (the dialect varies but they belong to the same language). In India, we have multiple languages – 121 to be precise and these are just by grouping all dialects into one main language – and each linguistic group feels dearly about their language. It is fair enough considering that language binds us to our roots and people. Indian states were formed on the basis of language to make it easier to govern people speaking the same language. The same language assures maximum similar culture and the administration becomes easier. Of course, over the years people have migrated ...

As life happened to us, friends became busier by the day. One day, Aditi, Aradhika, and I decided to meet. We met at the Tea Villa Café. It had an appealing ambiance and the food, I had heard, was delicious. I knew that I would not be able to pay since I had not received my salary (due in a day or two) so I was a little hesitant. I told this to Aditi and Aradhika and the next second they were like, “Amhi ahot na…” (Just leave that to us). I recall another incident when another friend of mine, Sanika, has paid at times too without hesitation. It was not a matter of whether one had money or not, another just paid. There was never a frown upon her face when she had to pay and neither did I think even once before paying when it was my turn. We just paid for each other. Another dear friend, Shamli, has also been very kind. Viraj, Shamli, and I hung out a lot of times. Whenever the three of us would meet, we would generally meet for lunch. Viraj was struggling with his job and would clar...

Gone are the days when streams in education equalled intelligence, isn’t it? NO! Though it is correct that the scope of varied subjects has widened when we look at them as careers, has the mindset widened? Science students do get a lot of backing when it comes to their studies and their being busy, and arts to wo log lete hain jinse jyada padhai nahi hoti … NO! If so, then why is it that being a science student is equivalent to a lot of studying? The answer is simple: being a science student is, in reality, equivalent to a busy schedule but not self-study. To add to it, when a student attends coaching classes, he looks outright busy. Subah 4 ghanta classes karega, fir college jayega jahape wo adha to timepass karega, aur fir practicals attend karke ghar aa jayega. Iske baad shayad extra classes bhi attend karega . All in all, this so-called studying is nothing but attending lectures to gather information for self-studying. Irrespective of the stream, the gathered information has to...

I have come to believe that a book chooses the reader and it knows when the reader should pick it up. Has it ever happened that you have bought a book a long time ago and yet never happen to read it? It seems that all your curiosity to read suddenly ends till one day, you finally start reading it, and not only read it but understand it better. That’s exactly what happened to me. I had bought the world-famous novel ‘To kill a mockingbird’ in 2012. I picked the book a lot of times from my shelf but never read it. The desire to read this classic in my lifetime wouldn’t go from my mind, yet somehow I didn’t read till March 2020. I was conducting a prelim of class 10 students and had nothing to do. I looked into my bookshelf and picked up Mockingbird; finally! I will not bore you with the redundant details of the book as Google will do that for you. I will get to the point. I love this book the characters, the plot, and the setting. The book is written from the perspective of a 6-year-o...

The ones who know me as a teacher might find it difficult to believe if I tell them that I never wanted to be a teacher in the first place! I mean, I wanted to, then things changed so I didn’t want to, and I ended up becoming one. Let me clarify! I was never good at maths (the cliché that language teachers are generally never good at maths). I was good at languages and this was proven right by the aptitude test my school had conducted during my class 10 th . After a long discussion with my parents, I decided that I will become a teacher and make a career in English. I had scored 85% in class 10 th (Mind you, it was 2007 and my school topper was at 88%. These were a lot of marks back then). Many, when I chose Arts, believed that I had tricked my parents into it and that my parents would never let me chose anything but Science with this percentage. Even teachers in college were surprised because any percentage post 75 was equivalent to choosing science. One of the teachers went to t...

Today’s topic is broad enough to consume the space of two, three or more blogs but I will make a long story short. Today’s education system and the competition are becoming a killer. Children have lost their childhood thanks to the so-called ‘our children should know everything right from the start’ concept. Kids of 1 st and 2 nd grade are under pressure. Concepts that can be difficult to grasp at this age are crammed in their brains. Some are good at it, some find it tough to cope and many just manage. This ‘manage’ category is the middle class of education. No need to write any further. The pressure deepens as a student starts climbing the so-called ladder of success. Really? Taking someone’s childhood away; you call this success? Thanks to our highly educated (sarcasm intended 200%) ministers that our education has become meaningless; especially our education till grade 10. Nobody cares about 10 th anymore as it is nothing more than momentary happiness. I am friends with ...

Open your ears, tap the screen, switch on the radio, turn on the news channel… all of them are taking a toll on us. Even the strongest of us are faltering, even if it is only for a moment. Events triggering optimism have become vital for survival. Numerous influencers have highlighted the importance of creating content and working even in this situation. It may sound insensitive, but on the contrary, we need this stuff. We need something to make us smile, to divert the mind and to think clearly. After all, as Zig Zaglar puts it: A healthy mind breeds a healthy body and vice versa. Today I am here to simply share something that triggered optimism in me and as Robert Frost puts it: Has given my heart, A change of mood. I was conducting an online class after which I bid goodbye to my students. As they were leaving the meeting, I called out to a student and told her that she almost sounded like her elder sister. I added that it was confusing for anyone who would hear the younger one ...

  March 2020 had us marching in an unknown direction. Locked movements and heavenly freedom from studies for students. Dig deeper and you’ll realise that the virus revealed who really cares about knowledge and who doesn’t. Lectures happened online and you know it, half of the students were on YouTube on another tab “attending the lecture”. Education was literally brought to your computers to avoid loss of knowledge. This situation was a double-edged sword. If there were students who went away from studies, there were many who embraced the situation to do things which otherwise in a normal situation would be next to impossible; most probably due to lack of time. Time saved, students took full advantage of the situation. As teachers, many of us got lucky during this period. We ended up honing our skills and learning new stuff, reading new books, and got into various other activities. It provided us time to go beyond just teaching. Classroom teaching was replaced by online teach...

We all deserve a break. Hang on! The question is: won’t we lag behind if we take a break? I come across many who take frequent breaks at the wrong times. What ensues is a disrupted schedule and breakneck workload. To cope with the load, guess what? Another break. Consequently massive chaos and the decision to avoid taking breaks from the next time. This doesn’t mean that breaks aren’t essential. They surely are! And this blog post is all about the importance of taking breaks. Given our age, we all have different notion of breaks. The ones who don’t really work in a productive way keep on taking breaks. On the contrary, the ones who work with passion often forget the importance of breaks. They say that they fall short of time to take a break. They fear missing the deadline. Surprisingly and contrastingly, a well-earned break will take them closer to their goal! Taking a break means truly separating yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally from that task to indulge in somet...

As Charles Darwin said, “The love for all living creatures is the noblest attribute of man.” I further state taking into account all human tendencies that whether you love an animal or not, you can’t deny the fact that they are nothing but a gift of nature and hello! We are animals too. Just because we have evolved into humans doesn’t mean we forget our roots. People have taken care of animals from time immemorial and yet, every time we watch an animal video on social media, our hearts melt. Let us take a moment to realize that we have actually invaded their territory for our comfort. The least we can do is to be kind to them. I will share an experience: once I waved my hand at an auto-rickshaw. My grandmother was with me and we were off to someplace. We sat in the rickshaw. The rickshaw driver wanted to make a U-turn but there was a dog sleeping there. He did honk but the dog did not budge. Unfortunately, he made a U-turn by putting the dog under the front wheel of his rickshaw. T...

It is rightly said that “procrastination is the thief of time.” The more one delays, the guiltier one feels. Of course, it also hampers one’s productivity. Many realize this, blame themselves yet get trapped in this cycle. I do have a simple yet effective solution to this. Making a checklist along with a deadline is a great help when it comes to procrastinating. A checklist sets a target and gets your brain into action. When you know you have to accomplish some tasks by the end of the day, you work towards it. Ticking off a task on the list gives a sense of accomplishment: Target achieved! That very sense of accomplishment becomes a booster. The more tasks you get done with, the more you will find yourself working to tick off the entire checklist. Bottom line: let the accomplishment of one task become your motivation to complete the next, and the next, and the next, and… hey, the list is ticked off! Congratulations! You can have a rest. J A common error while making such a list is ...

How many times has it happened that we have received a lot of advice and suggestions? Many times I believe. To add to it, many of these are similar to each other in some cases yet the point is: why is it that only some drive home the message? I guess there are surrounding factors to it. Maybe the experience we may be going through or the context in which we receive the advice… There is a lot of advice I’ve received but this one has stayed with me like no other advice. All of us were once a student and we have been there, done that: we have been typical students at a point in time. During my master's, I was facing some issues with one of the subjects (typical student problems ;)). As usual, we were playing the blame game and yes, you guessed it right, the blame was on the teacher and her teaching skills. A genuine and helping person that she was, we were concerned with her teaching skills at that point in time. We were standing next to the door of our classroom cribbing about ho...