जी ले ज़रा !

दो पल का ये है जीवन, ना सोच - है ज्यादा के कम,
क्यूँ व्यर्थ में चिंता करता है, करना ही है - तो कर चिंतन !
जो कब से दिल में था तेरे, वो अब भी दिल में है कहीं गुम,
मानेगा मेरी तो सुन: तूं मन की कर - पर सबकी सुन !
जीवन एक ही है प्यारे, तूं मत रख मन में कोई भ्रम,
सपनों को तू कर पूरा, अब ना व्यर्थ किये कोई क्षण !
आनंद ले जीवन का तूं, ना कर केवल - जीवन यापन,
आज अभी से ठान ले बस तूं - कि पाना है परमानंद !

खुशियाँ है मकसद

सपने हैं इन आँखों में और हिम्मत है इन बाँहों में,
लक्ष्य साध लिया है अब तो, निकल पड़ा हूं राहों पे !
कर लूंगा, जो भी है करना, इतना है विश्वास मुझे,
अपनी पहचान बनानी है, नहीं रहना है सायों में !
नाम कामना नहीं है मकसद, मकसद है खुशियाँ पाना,
पा लूंगा मैं खुशियों को, क्या रखा है नामों में !
माना प्रतिस्पर्धा है, आपाधापी है दुनिया में,
नहीं बनना है भीड़ का हिस्सा, क्यूँ पडूँ मैं इस सब में !
मंज़िल नहीं नज़र आई है, पर राह है सही मेरी,
चंद लम्हों की और बात है, मुझे यकीन हो जाने में !

स्व. डॉ. कलाम को समर्पित

सूरज उगता सूरज ढलता , दिन है चढ़ता दिन है ढलता,
ये सब है निरंतर चलता !
पर एक सूरज ऐसा था, जो उज्जवल था - बस उज्जवल था,
कभी ना थकता, कभी ना ढलता, दुनिया को प्रकाशित करता !
वो लिखता था, वो कहता था, और सबको ये बतलाता था,
ना थकना है, ना रुकना है, वो सबको ये समझाता था !
वो सबका आदरणीय था, सबकी आँखों का तारा था,
ऐसा पावन मानुष था की देवों को भी प्यारा था !
आज मगर उस सूरज ने इस धरती से प्रश्थान किया,
मायूस था, पर क्या करता, था देवों ने आह्वान किया !
दुःख की नहीं है बात, है ये घडी - जश्न्न मानाने की,
एक अलोकिक आत्मा के ईश्वर में मिल जाने की !
नहीं रहा तू बीच हमारे, पर यादों में अमर रहेगा,
सूरज चाँद रहेगा जब तक, तब तक तेरा नाम रहेगा !

MY TRYSTS WITH LIFE (Speech)

Hi! My name is Gopal Sharma. I am 23 years of age. I am working here at Oceaneering as a Design Engineer. My father is a teacher, a strict teacher I should say. My mother is a home maker and world's best cook. My elder brother is an IT Engineer.

Today, I am going to talk about my trysts, i.e., some romantic moments, with life. Apart from being a Mechanical Engineer, I have great deal of interest in Creative Writing. I have a blog on which I write on highly irregular basis. The blog of mine has got nearly 3 lakh hits till date. Being a writer, what I look for in everyday of mine, is the content which I can put on my blog for my readers. For me, life is an assignment given to us by the almighty and we must always try to find the contents for it. At the end of the day, what will matter? Your content!

My way of finding the content for my assignment is very simple. I talk to people. I am going to use this opportunity which is presented to me today to narrate a few of the instances which have left everlasting impressions onto me.

First instance:

During my B.Tech., one day I was going back home after a long day in the college. Not to mention, I was a day scholar. I took an auto rickshaw. The auto was nearly occupied except one seat which was on the right to the driver in the front. As I was tired and wanted to reach home asap, I didn't hesitate taking that seat. On the way, I asked the auto driver a very tricky question. I asked him, 'What's the mileage of your auto?' I wasn't expecting a convincing answer. But, to my surprise, the auto driver did have an answer to that. He said, 'Sir, as my auto has a diesel engine, the mileage is good. It's around 50kmpl.' I was surprised more by the way he explained rather than what he explained.  Then I asked a second question, 'How much do you earn in a day? It must be a descent amount, huhh?' His response was a negative. He said, 'I don't earn much as I can't give my whole time to this. This in fact is my part time business.' I asked again, 'What else do you do?' He gave me a scare by saying, 'I am doing my B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Kurukshetra University.' I don't remember his name, I don't remember his face, but, I will remember these words till the end of my life. 

Second Instance:

I studied in a Hindi Medium school till 5th standard. I had an excellent academics till that time. After 5th, my parents planned to admit me in an English Medium school. I was damn afraid. I always had that inferiority complex when it came to English schools. But, even after all my pleadings and promises of doing even better in the present school, I was admitted to the new school. I was a bit late in joining my 6th standard in the new school (1 & a half month almost). Then I had to cover the syllabus which was already covered and I was supposed to make a few friends from whom I had to borrow their 'fair copies' for copying. I did!

After then came the summer break. I was damn excited and a bit relieved too. I spent most of the 40-day break in making fair copies by copying from my friends'. But, I wasn't able to complete my Homework in time as most of my friends completed theirs at the last moment and I couldn't get the time to copy it! I couldn't do it myself either as the English Grammar was too hot for me to handle.

Well, the vacations got over. On the first day after vacation, in the morning assembly, our School Principal addressed us. She talked about different topics ranging from the significance of morning prayer and physical exercises to upcoming terminal exams and the significance of Homework. At the end of her speech, she asked, "Is there anyone who hasn't completed his homework?"

I thought that I'm gonna get in trouble if I don't raise my hand, as I thought that the teacher in the class will castigate me for not raising my hand in the morning assembly when the homework will be checked later in the morning. So, I raised my hand!

Principal asked me my name. I answered in my shivering voice. Then she asked me the reason for not completing the work. In my shivering voice, I made 'the second mistake of the morning' by saying, "No one gave me their Notebook to copy!"

The morning assemblies in typical Indian schools are noisy. Amidst the prattle, my excuse went unheard by the principal, but, my friends sitting around me got it! They chuckled and started murmuring. A few gazed at me too. I realized my mistake.

Principal asked again the reason for non-completion. It was the time to unleash Plan B! I started looking at the floor and behaved as if I'm the dumbest of the lot! As soon as the Principal shifted her attention from me, my friends pulled me down and I sat even when I wasn't told to do so. I got an important lesson that day: Plan B's are awesome!!!

Samuel Butler, an English author said, ‘Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.’ Life is a journey and we must live it pretending that we will be writing an autobiography someday. Let's make everyday better than yesterday. So, when are you having your tryst with your life, huhh???

My speech on Murphy’s Law

Last week, I was searching for Inspirational Speeches on Youtube. I found one titled ‘Life is easy. Why do we make it so hard?’ by Jon Jandai, who is a farmer from Thailand. His philosophical views on Life inspired me a lot. In that speech of his, he talked about his village where everything is simple & straight forward. He talked about his people who work hard in planting rice for a month, harvesting the same one more month and spending rest of the 10 months enjoying themselves.

Well, certainly the thought which is coming to your mind is completely apt. We are not cultivating Rice here. But, what his speech made me realize was that whatever problems we have, howsoever sufferings we go through, we need to take a pause and think: Is it worth it? If you believe it’s not: change your path and if you believe it is, then, there is something which can make your sophisticated journey unsophisticated. This is something I’m going to talk about next.

We all have problems in our lives; no one has something called a picture perfect story in the real world. For all the bad things that happen to us, we curse our luck for it. Bad luck is something that seems to haunt people and I am sure that all of you assume that you have the worst luck; nothing goes the way that you plan. 

Your bad luck is due to Murphy’s Law, a law that affects us all. No matter how hard you try to escape, Murphy’s Law will find you and turn things from bad to worse. The most popular version of Murphy’s Law is that “Anything that can go wrong; will go wrong”. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the first one to go wrong. Let me give you an example:

You're sitting in eight lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic. You're more than ready to get home, but you notice, to your great dismay, that all of the other lanes seem to be moving. You change lanes. But once you do, the cars in your new lane come to a dead halt. At a standstill, you notice every lane on the highway (including the one you just left) is moving -- except yours.

Welcome to the aggravating world of Murphy's Law. This isn't because of some mysterious power the law possesses. In reality, it's us who give Murphy's Law relevance. When life goes well, little is made of it. After all, we expect that things should work out in our favor. But when things go badly, we look for reasons. From the most failsafe plan to the faultiest one, Murphy’s Law will make something happen that was not expected. This law has become the downfall of humanity and mankind as we know it.

Murphy's Law taps into our tendency to dwell on the negative and overlook the positive and it uses the rules of probability -- the mathematical likeliness that something will occur -- to support itself. For example, the chances of the Bread falling with the Buttered Side down are higher than 50% if we use simple Physics. There’s a popular saying though: the chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet.

The law captures our imagination. Murphy's Law and its offshoots have been collected in books and Web sites. Several bands are named after Murphy's Law, and it's also a popular name for Irish pubs. It was also used as the title of an action movie.

The most obvious question that comes to our mind is, ‘How can we escape Murphy’s Law?’ Unfortunately there is no way. Much to the disappointment to everyone, this is the way life works, get used to it. 

So, if you are one of those who keep on blaming their stars: stop doing it; because now you all know what you should be cursing instead. Even when things seem the worst, think of this: Smile today because tomorrow will be worse.

Thank you!!