M(a)Y

Time runs. It does not fly anymore for me here. It marches and sprints with a 'Champion!' spirit.

My May 2011 was a peak of Intern's Cycle Life: last farewells to ACE family members: Naldo, Erik, Agus, Ola, Mohamed Adel, Vincent. My dear Naldo, my soulmate and my brother; it was Naldo, Elizabeth's and my journey in India we cherished, shared and cared about. My dear Erik whose positive attitude softened all the challenges I had encountered in Chennai and whose firm hand was always there to reach. Beautiful Ola that showed me her wisdom, who was constantly seeking for the best and learning to enjoy simple beauties in the world. Agus, Latino, guapo, whose salsas and merengues I will always miss! Mohamed Adel, the passionate Egyptian friend, his friendship is as silent as a mouse. Vincent, a big big African brother with a wide friendly smile and kind eyes.

...May was as crazy as any other month here in India. I was twice seriously sick: these temperature differences of indoor and outdoor checkmate me with no option but be treated with MEDICINE. Of course, I go to the Doc in a very rare case: I just simply do not believe to whatever they prescribe. However, here in India I already had gone twice to the Doc: dealing with infections and abnormal fevers made me re-look at my skeptical views of the Medicine in general.

Then, there was an intensive week of parties. It started with my pre Birthday party. My flatmates- Pamela, Erik and Tom- together with my first flatmates and close friends from Hyderabad - Carlos, Areli, Jose and Fernando - gifted me with a huge touching surprise: the Hyderabadis just arrived here at Chennai on Saturday noon. Devoted friends spent about 20 hours on the train, on a bus, in a rickshaw instead of traditional 12 hours! Exhausted and sweating, the Latino friends made a loud noise in our Chennai flat! It was totally unexpected: I was having a lazy noon nap when all of a sudden somebody was whistling, and then I saw faces of Fernando and Carlos in my room! Firstly I thought I was having a dream and I smiled looking at both of them: God knows how much I missed both of them! But then the noise grew louder and louder, and Areli and Jose's laughs woke me up completely! Had I had a camera nearby I could've captured those moments: all of us together embracing each other and tears come down my face... All my flatmates and close friends in Chennai knew about the surprise and were awaiting for the evening party to start. It was a priceless Bday gift! I am hundred times grateful to Pamela and my dear Chennai friends for keeping the fire burning that night!

So the Party week continued. We had farewells for Tina, Agus, Erik, Edward ( who actually left 3 weeks after because of the inefficiency and weirdness of the Immigration office of Chennai ), we had Bday party for Tanya, a true Damn Soviet compatriot. With Erik leave we welcomed Sergio and Angela to Chennai ACE family, and the parties went on and on ...

Meanwhile, my body got weaker and weaker. The heat of Chennai had been ruining all my hopes for a chilly weather at least for a day. I had this crazy thought to crack the eggs on the heated cemented road or rock and fry them. Guess, I thought too long that I actually never did it. Now the sun is not that strong and the experiment has more chances to be just a hypothetical thought of mine . . .

However, even if I was staying in bed with high temperature and terribly sounding cough I was still hoping to run a Marathon in June in Bangalore. By the way, my former office mate Juan, hearing my cough, said to me, 'Even I with a long Smoker experience do not cough like you do. Go visit the Doc': said-forgotten. I was worried of a more important stuff:

a) How long it takes me to run 5 km

b) When I am travelling to Malaysia

Creating Happiness

When I read my posts from first 6 months of living and working in India, I notice how many times I mention " I want to be Happy". In fact, right now I realise I was happy all that time as well as quite dissatisfied with the professional experience I was (not ) having. Friends would say, "You can't have both: excelling at work and living a wonderful life". I would frown back and ask, "Why I can't have these both at the same time? It is only me who is responsible for getting what I want in life". "Yeah, but there are some internal or external circumstances which you have to take into account, you know. Especially in India, where nothing is stable and things change faster than a thought appears in one's mind" And I would be still frowning and disagreeing with this viewpoint. Yeah, call me stubborn or idealistic but this is me and I live with this spirit.

So when I look back at my year I lived in Latvia I am firmly reassured what year I had lived in my life. I headed to Latvia to see AIESEC in Latvia growing, having successes and learning from failures, daring to dream big and not being afraid of how big those dreams were, seeing the impact of his or her actions. I had one long term thought in my mind: I want to live a year of SUCCESS and ACHIEVEMENT, and share it with people around me. Living in India I came to a conclusion that I had success and achievement every single day during my term in the National Team of AIESEC in Latvia. Can you believe it - every single day? I say to myself - no, it can't be. How many times did you lose faith or get mad or refuse from an initial plan to accomplish a professional or personal goal? If at least it happened once, how can you declare you were successful every single day? But here is a trick: it is all about how you perceive it. Yes, we all get emotional ( and don't tell me lies that there are folks who are super perfect in managing their emotions ), Yes, we all may lose inner beliefs and give up, but that is the easiest way. For me it is a behaviour of me being weak, it is about wasting time procrastinating or complaining. The complaints do not bring solutions, so it is better to move on, to open your eyes and mind for other great upcoming moments, opportunities, encounters.

So after my 3-4 months of Indianness I made it clear for myself: in the year of 2010-11 I want to be HAPPY and see LOVE around. When I do not feel happiness or love - I create it. I go and try new things, I experiment with my body, with my mind, with my feelings. I travel to relax and live the moment. Carpe Diem, you know :)

Accidentally, I watched this video tonight:

Stefan Sagmeister: 7 rules for making more happiness | Video on TED.com

... after all, if you want to be happy, be (c)

I Want It!

I feel this amazing springy desire to do these days things I have craved for recently!

I want:

- spend more hours in the gym to prepare myself for the upcoming marathon in Bangalore

- meditate to hear myself

- place things in order and freshly breathe in after some chaotic months

- finish 4 books I am reading now (!)

- watch the movies from my friend and write back to him

- start writing my 1st book of living abroad

- go to Chennai beach in the evening and not worry about late hours after office spending there

- dance like hell everywhere: at home, in a club, in my soul

- approve my budget for the independent summer travel plan in South Asia

- prepare for the ACE Conference in July 2011

- say "I love you" and "Thank You" to people that I love and care

- call my brother and hear him sounding happily

- prepare myself mentally for homecoming

- get rid of fears that recently appeared in my life. This thing must be funny because recently I wanted to have some fears but now since I have been uttering this word quite often I feel an emotional tiring weigh and it is very boring for me.

- get back to studying Portuguese

- lastly and most importantly I want to make a successful marriage between what I do and what I love

Be grateful

Last few days I am feeling pretty much weak. I believe it is the heat and humidity and air pollution of noisy Chennai that I still did get used to living. Though I've lived here already 4,5 months.

Today I started a new yoga course: a new teacher, a new room for practising, a new group of people interested in ... in whatever they are interested. Some come for spirituality, some others come because their parents brought them there, like today.

In my previous yoga classes I had for a couple of months in the office premises I've experienced two different things:

a) Teamwork

b) Fun

What I missed was Why? I do yoga like I was told to. I joined those classes because I was curious - that is like people say, C'me on! You live in India and aren't yogging! Which is a quite imprecise judgement: I've heard before and witnessed myself that the so-called "Yoga Gurus of India" are not always great inspiring leaders or pro's. So in the end of my second month of previous classes I ...quited :) Luckily, three or four weeks later I found a new yoga course in a distance of 3 min walk from my flat (yes, yes, I refer to the distance like auto rickshaws in Mumbai :)

So today I met new people whom I am welcoming to my life: the yoga master ( I don't know his name yet but when he calls me he says, "Hello, this is yoga master" - if he is going to call himself the Master, I really will believe him soon :), a few kids that funnily did Pranayamas (breathing exercises), a brave average aged woman in a tight saree- she got me thinking of her outfit for the class, a young tall father that came with his cute 4-5 year old son ( the boy kept looking at me the whole class. Once I smiled at him I received a smile back :) and a 65 year old thin bold man.

Most of the exercises we did were not a new invention of how to make our bodies move. They were less intensive and less sweating in comparison with previous Office Guru classes. And they were shorter- 45 minutes. But! these classes are 6 times/week and the duration will be extended once we are ready for that. This is what Master Guru said.

But why I am writing about this one hour piece of my evening is that I heard a beautiful monologue from that 65 year old thin bold man. We live in one block of flats with him. He is from Hyderabad ( Yay! ) and now stays with his son in Chennai. He met me nearby my flat and spoke to me. In the beginning it was a pretty common opening of the dialogue:

- Hi, I saw you came to a yoga class today. Is it your first class?

- Yes, it is. I also saw you.

- Ah yes, yes. I came to the club on Saturday. You know, they don't have classes on Mondays.

- Yes, I know.

Meanwhile he keeps smiling illuminating me with a very warm deep look of his eyes.

- Where are you from?

- I am from Kazakhstan.

- Rajasthan?

- No, Kazakhstan, Central Asia ( Oh My, I think, how come that one of 26 states in India sounds so familiar to Kazakhstan?). Do you know where Central Asia is?

- Rajasthan... Hm, no, it is in India.

- No, no, Kazakhstan. Do you know China? Russia?

- China... Yes, I know. Russia, yes. But where is Kazakhstan? (well, he mispronounced the name)

- Russia is in the north, China is in the east and in the middle is Kazakhstan. This is where I am from.

After a few minutes, still smiling and examining me with his slyish but friendly eyes he says:

- Are you not Russia? Is Kazakhstan in Russia?

- No, we are a separate independent state. But we border. You know, like India borders with Nepal the same is with us: Kazakhstan and Russia share one border in the north ( At this point I stopped not going into details )

- But have you not been a part of Russia?

- We have been in the Union. In the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan, Russia and 13 other countries. But nowadays we are all independent countries ( and I am not going to debate with people on this topic - which state is independent nowadays and which is not )

And then the old man, my new neighbour/yoga mate/a friend (?) switched to another topic. He talked to me about his father and what his father taught him. One of the biggest lessons he learnt from his father is ... gratitude. He said, Do not criticize anyone. When you criticize things or people, you spoil your mind, your soul, your body. You allow negative thoughts overspread in your mind, body and soul. And this is bad. This is too bad. Do not do it. Do not criticize people. This is what my father taught me... Be thankful. Be grateful.

I was attentively listening to him and all seemed like he spelled a few minutes with his grandfather's charm. At that moment I made a parallel to:

a) Why he was talking to me about gratitude?

b) As a kid, I was less fortunate and did not spend much time with my grandfathers. My father's father, the knowledge and the treasure of the family, had a car accident in a very young age; my mother's father, the role model, died from a cancer when I was 6. So I actually did not have any time to spend with them.

... Accidentally I played my friend's playlist and heard this song - the song about gratitude.

Let us be grateful. At least, today.

This is YOUR LIFE!

Was fortunate enough to receive this message from a friend months ago...

Had enough of memory power to find this message in my messy inbox to remind myself and share with everyone ...

The Power of Belief

" John Stuart Mill once wrote, One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests. That's precisely why beliefs open the door to excellence"

This sentence had stricken me today! I was dining in the office canteen feeling quite exhausted after the weekend trip to Trivandrum, Kerala and dying because of the Chennai heat. I impatiently took out the book I am reading now from my old reliable orange backpack, turned to page 55 and greedily swallowed the first paragraph. The eye opening sentence had reassured me that in times of turbulence we can

a) give up;

b) pause and lose momentum;

c) stay firm, keep believing in yourself and think positively.

The latter had highlighted my adventurous weekend in Kerala - I strongly believed in myself and I saw only happy moments of it. Said - done: it has been THE Weekend! I will share it with you dear readers in some time ( Love Hinglish :)

... For this weekend I am thankful to India ...

There will be stories for me to tell my grandchildren :)

The Cycle

An intern's life is simply AWESOME!!!

I have been an intern during my University years, and that life was mainly about performing super well, proving my skills and learning a lot about my major studies in practice. That life has been super cool because of exceptional mentors I had who shared with me the beauties of a teacher's role as well as the university students made my 4-6 weeks of practice unbelievably amazing and challenging!

9 months I have been an intern in one of the leading Indian IT companies. Have travelled around India, visited beautiful Sri Lanka, dreamt about touring around South (East) Asia, met so many great great people and some parts of me are in hands of international friends in their home countries... Incredible!

Yesterday I celebrated my engagement with India. I was sitting in a rickshaw, going today for a German friend's farewell and thinking about my 9 months' life. What has been and has not, where I have been and have not yet, what I have gone through and what is still there awaiting for me, what kind of person I have become... So many events happened for the past 9 months... I cannot measure them, I cannot describe them piece by piece, sometimes I cannot bear all happiness at one and the same moment.

One thing that I would like to share is that I became such a proactive learner at my internship in India. I have definitely learnt some invaluable lessons of life in my previous experiences. But somehow Indianness stands out of the crowd so far. Today I have heard a lot of negative thoughts, emotions and simply bitching from a few people and it got me thinking. What can this person do? What action shall he take? If he asks for a help, shall I help? How?

It is always easy to complain, I used to think. I used to think that I prefer to be a part of the solution rather than a part of the problem. I feel I still tend to think in this way. So today I was thinking whether to leave the person dealing with his problems who tends to be a part of the problem, or to help him by at least listening and help him grow.

Another moment that closed my day was friend's farewell. This is intern's lifestyle: people come, people leave. You easily or through pains connect with new homo sapiens, they enter your life, they shape you and your tastes, they are a part of your Indianness, they are a part of your learning and maturity, they are a part of you... You are them, they are you. And then they leave. And you cannot do anything but hope you will meet one day in this beautiful world. Next future moments will always be different, but it does not mean they will be bad. On the contrary, actually.

... One more close friend's farewell is in a few days... The person who has been here always for me - all these 9 months and a few more days...

Unbelievable intern's life in India... Unbelievably cool people do live on this planet. They are called the children of the sun.