SCMM – 2017 | Expo Vlog

8th Jan 2017. Vlog no. 2. SCMM 2017 Expo.

Marathon Expo’s are always fun. I enjoyed this small expedition to Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2017 – Mirchi Expo. Hope you enjoy it too!

Don’t forget to let me know your feedback in comments.

Race Day Vlog coming this weekend.

Credits – Background Music – Andrew Applepie (Germany) – Check out Andrew’s page here – It may just peace you out.

 

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Craving of The Yellow Diary

First video log (vlog) of 2017.

I shot this video in October of 2016. It depicts my small expedition to South Bombay to see my friend Stuart and his Band’s live performance at The Experimental Theatre in NCPA.

Please enjoy and let me know your feedback in comments.

Credits –

  • Live performance – Euphony Official & The yellow diary
  • Background Music – Andrew Applepie (Germany) – Check out Andrew’s page here – It may just peace you out.

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New year resolutions – 2017

New Year Resolutions

Last year I first published a list of my top 10 new year resolutions for the year of 2016. So I’m continuing the tradition, cause it helped me move in the right direction in the last year throughout. I would go back each month to this resolution list and see my progress. It was a fun and productive process.

It’s the new year day today. New hopes, New resolutions and a report of last year’s resolutions. Here you go.

New year resolutions – 2017

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Top 10 most loved posts of 2016

2016 was one of the amazing years of my life. I accomplished better than ever and wrote more than 50 posts (over 60,000 words) in the entire year.

I thought it would be awesome to compile a list of my top 10 most loved posts of 2016. For one reason or another, the posts below are the ones that generated the most views, shares, comments, and emails.

Hope you enjoy and find something useful inside like I did while writing them.

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Unboxing | MI Fitness Band – Version- 1

As you might already know, I’m a fitness enthusiast and a runner. So I like to track my fitness levels and activities like walking, running and sleep.

In this post I’m doing the unboxing and out of the box review of this MI Fitness band – Version – 1.

This particular MI Fitness band is a great starting point for anyone getting into fitness monitoring.

This band costed me Indian rupees – 999/-. I bought it from a MI.com online store. You can buy it online from Amazon.in. Just go here.

Detailed review to follow up later.

So here it is.

Unboxing | MI Fitness Band – Version- 1

This video covers unboxing, closer look at the band and brief over view of the product from design and esthetic point of view.

Please enjoy.


Let me know, which other fitness bands or products you would like to get reviewed. Please mention in the comments section below.

P.S.: This is not a paid endorsement of any kind. This is just a genuine review of the MI fitness band (version – 1). I bought it few months back from MI.com. However the link above is an amazon affiliate link which helps me keep this blog running.

Please subscribe to my Blog for more product reviews, unboxing videos and lifestyle design strategies.

Just submit your email address in the below form or right here –  and you’re set.


No spam, ever. Only great stuff.

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Benares! Day – 3

This post is the progression of my earlier travelogue posts (Day 1Day 1 ContinuedDay 2 and Day 2 Continued) on Benares trip earlier this year, Hope you enjoy it.

Benares – Day 3

In the day 2 post where i mentioned i met a few photographers and travelers while i was having my late lunch at the Cafe Zoe near Assi Ghat. We discussed a lot on traveling, photography and life in general, among other things. Life in their countries and life here in india. It was then that i started loving my travels more, cause they made me meet people from across the world who thought like i did.

We met in the evening again on the same day. While bidding goodbyes for the night they invited me to their place for breakfast the next morning. I was so psyched to meet them again. The best part! we didn’t exchange our numbers, they just gave me their address and told me to be their in the morning.

The next morning, i was up at 7 o’clock. Got my shower and ready to go in the next half hour. Then, I started for their hotel where few of them had been living from the past few days.

It was a Welcome Heritage hotel on the far north side of the Main ghat. As i walked towards this hotel, i had to go through two really scary and shocking spots, which i didn’t know were there on my way. First was the living area of the Aghori Babas.

Oh boy! That place scared the living shit out of me. But as i digested all that was going around while crossing that spot, i made peace with it. These Aghori monks are said to be an mysterious ancient tribe who feast on human flesh as part of their rituals, as well as drinking from human skulls, chewing the heads off live animals and meditating on top of cadavers in search of spiritual enlightenment.

Here a picture of an Aghori Baba taken by an Italian photographer Cristiano Ostinelli who spent time with the tribe to discover more about their way of life. Here’s the complete article.

Aghori Baba | Photo credits – Italian photographer Cristiano Ostinelli

I wasn’t even back to my wits yet, then came the scariest moment of my Benares Trip. It was a heavy feeling of weird kind of energy when i passed by the “Manikarnika Ghat”*. I’m getting goosebumps even right now, as i’m writing this. I couldn’t even take my camera out, when i was crossing this place.

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Benares! Day – 2 Continued…

This post is the progression of my earlier travelogue posts (Day 1Day 1 Continued and Day 2) on Benares trip, Hope you enjoy it.

Benares – Day 2 Continued…

Once i crossed the Flower boat, i started heading towards north again. Then as i was just crossing an area where a pundit was doing a ceremony, just after a family arrived back to the Ghats from a boat which had gone to immerse ashes of their deceased beloved in holy Ganges. It looked like a rural south Indian family, I tried to capture a few portraits of them.

I was expecting intense emotion of grief, but most of them were having happy faces except for the wife of the deceased. I tried to talk to them and found out the deceased was in pain and suffering due to a long hold malady. So the whole family was having a relief that at least now their beloved will not have to suffer through that pain which he was experiencing from a long time. Here are a few portraits:

I call these photographs collectively – “The Faces”.

The Couple!

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Benares – The beginning

The next few posts will be a continued progression of my experiences1 in the mysterious city of Benares2! Hope you enjoy it.

Benares – The beginning

I’m thinking, How do i even start telling you about this mysterious city of Benares!

How about death?

First day of my Benares visit. It’s Dusk time!

I crossed the Main Ghat and was walking towards the eastern ghats. There it was.

Harishchandra Ghat!

Harishchandra Ghat, Benares
Photo – Himanshu Sachdeva
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Emotions are the key to courage and alive!

Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash

We start feeling emotions from the very first day we get into our consciousness. We laugh with our friends to share our joyous moments. We cry when someone breaks our heart. We feel low when someone goes away. We feel high when we are with the right ones at the right time. These feelings are emotions. But what it is exactly? Is it human nature? Is it a way of interaction without having to say a word? Is it a deep connection of two souls which lights up the spiritual recesses? Maybe it’s all of them. But specifically, it’s the outcome of mutual state of minds. When two souls or minds co-relate, then emotions emerge.

Emotions are present in each and every one. Different persons picture it in their own way. Some say “It’s weak to be emotional. Emotions can distract you from the decisions you want to take for good.” I won’t deny it, but it’s not entirely true. A great mind had said, nothing is false, everything we see, we hear, we feel is truth. Cause everyone and everything has their own angle to the truth. In some situations, it seems to be true but in other situations, it may seem false. Here, another angle to the truth is that emotions are a very powerful feeling.

I’ve seen people going extreme in emotions, both in a good way and a bad way. But if you can channel this feeling in the right way, you can do great things to your life. If you love what you do, then you unknowingly put your emotions in that thing and this is what gives you courage in those moments of the reverse wind. When things aren’t falling in the right place, this is what keeps you going. Emotions are in there in your subconscious all the time. They keep you motivated.

Being emotional is a good thing and a bad thing. Let’s talk about the good thing first. Good thing is that it is the key to your courage in those low moments of life and it’s a key to being human. When we are emotional we do things with extremity. Like I said earlier if this extremity is channelized in positivity, the outcome will be great and positive for your life. The bad thing is sometimes being emotional can distract you from making the right decisions and emotions are channelized in negativity, which can make life really miserable.

From the experience I’ve had is, people who are emotional are mostly good at heart. But we should keep in mind that being emotional and being psychotic are way different things. While being emotional we shouldn’t forget the practicality of the situation. Emotion is human nature and Psychosis is a disorder. Emotional people are people who still can see the real picture and can adapt to the situation while being in that feeling.

Having some emotions towards our family and friends and the work we do, greatly enhance our relations, boost up our creativity, makes us alive. What is alive? Alive is a state of mind. A person can be breathing but still not alive, yes that’s possible. Until and unless he has emotions and feelings, he is way too far from being alive. Life isn’t about just being biologically and physically alive, but emotionally and mentally alive. Emotions are good but discipline is a great ingredient in the recipe of life. Life we really want is a mix of little emotions, great discipline and self-compassion.

Having said all of that, there should be a practical philosophy which everyone should follow. This can make you a better human being while being an emotional person. Our own values are very valuable. We should always let our values drive our decisions.

Recently I was watching an interview of Tim Ferriss on Mastering Any Skill. Tim had given great advice. I’ll cite him as stated – “The way I look at philosophy is, ideally it’s an operating system for life, for making a decision about what you should do and what you should not do.”.   So the whole point here is we should leverage ourselves to be emotional cause it makes us alive, but at the same time we shouldn’t let our values fade away, we should follow a practical philosophy, which will eventually make our lives better and us alive.

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Life you really want comes with discipline, consistency and self-compassion, always!

Photo by Hello I'm Nik on Unsplash

Photo by Hello I’m Nik on Unsplash

Life!

It’s not a predefined path towards happiness or sadness but a way which we carve out for ourselves. It’s based on the choices we make in our voyage.

Life is not a straight line, it’s a zig-zag path. Mixed with both the lows and highs of happiness and sadness. There has not been a single fortunate person who just had only happiness in life from the cradle till the grave and no single unfortunate one who just had sadness. Everybody, every single person experiences both the emotions in his or her lifetime. Though the ratio of these feelings differs for each and everyone.

If we want to live a happy and healthy life, we need to stay happy in a bigger ratio than sadness. How can we achieve it?

Anyone can achieve it, cause happiness is a choice not a state of mind. At times there will be situations that definitely gonna make us sad, but it’s our choice to fight them or to surrender. We do have a choice to surface up from that sadness. We have a choice to be happy. But it needs strong willpower to make that choice. More than 60% of people I know as friends, family or as close ones don’t possess that kind of willpower, which results in them being in a sad state which is totally unnecessary for them. They could choose happiness over that sadness but they didn’t, because their willpower was not that strong which didn’t allow them to move on from that sad thing. So how do we deal with this?

To reach a greater goal, first, we need to take the first step. That’s the most difficult part. Most of the people couldn’t make it there, because they don’t even take that first step.

Once we have taken the first step to get started, then we need to keep on moving by taking short but steady steps. Some people, after getting started, get so excited that they move on high pace, but they couldn’t keep up that pace and get tired of different circumstances like not getting the desired results or physical tiredness etc. and eventually they stop moving. But people who take smaller steps and keep on going on a steady pace and not thinking much about the goal but the process of reaching there, eventually get there.

Taking small steps and keep on going is not easy as it may seem, but it’s better than the former one. We must practice it with discipline so much until it becomes a native habit. Who said no efforts are needed? Of course, it will take great efforts, but won’t it be worth it? If it will give you a happy and healthy life.

Haven’t you heard, a healthy mind in a healthy body? In most cases it’s true. How could you achieve it? [Here’s a good article on 7 Steps to a Healthy Body and Mind.] There is only one way to be in a routine. Just show up every day, do it every day. Practice self-compassion each and every day.

Come on, make that choice, be happy be healthy. Show up every day for the routine you want to follow. Take that first step and keep moving.

Thanks to James Clear and Anca Dumitru for inspiring this post.

 

Inspiration only reveals itself after perspiration.

– James Clear

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