DAYS IN GOA

Day 1: 14^th April’ 2015

Starting from home is not always an exciting feeling because you are sometimes occupied with so many other things (worries or thoughts) and is in no position to think about the coming vacations or good time. That is what happened with me this time. Anyways, we started from home and reached at T3, there only i started to realize that I am on a trip to a city of sand and sea, away from office and homely routine life. VISTARA, a new airlines but with a good & reliable brand name i.e. TATA with SINGAPORE AIRLINES, made it a wonderful start for us. A before time departure, helpful; beautiful & loving airhostesses, delicious food and hospitality of an highest order made it a real kick start for us. Landing and pick up by a government vehicle makes you realize that the time invested over your journey to get a good, reputed and powerful job, did not go waste. Finally landing in the guest house at a premium location but unfortunately in the SOUTH GOA; unfortunate because we wanted it in NORTH GOA to have a good bunch of beaches near to us only, put our minds in double state. But we finally decided to stay there only. In the evening we decided to explore the nearby area in VASCO only. And finally, by taking the help of public transport we reached our destination. There we realized that the waiting time for the public bus was much more that the time taken to reach there. We shopped few things and came back but this time via an auto. At the guest house, the food was waiting for us. Finally after having a not so delicious food, we sealed our day with a hope to have a good time further.

Day 2: 15^th April’ 2015

Time for some work. Went to MPT and learnt many new things about a new concept and never an explored area i.e. PORT. There also the treatment we got from the local officers was an experience in itself. Well enough to make you realize that you are employed at a right work place. After visiting there I reached back to guest house and we had our lunch together. As the sun was setting, our mood to visit the nearby area was rising. So we decided to visit a nearby park along the beach side (not very well explored) and the most funny part was its name i.e. CHILDREN PARK. But believe me it was not as its name. I think we would not have called our journey a complete one without visiting that. We had a bhel puri from an only vendor selling it outside the park. The place is an appropriate one to breath fresh, tension free air. And finally, with a not so good vegie but OK OK non veggie food, we sealed our day 2.

Day 3: 16^th April’ 2015

Finally we decided to see the actual GOA in NORTH and for that we hired a cab for full day. The northern part was actually far off. And the day was really hot, as hot as you are in Dubai. The first destination of the day was Dolphin Safari in which you can see the Central Jail, a bungalow of some diamond merchant worth Rs. 80 crores and a sight of dolphins in the sea depends on your luck of the day. Two sure things I could make out 1.) the owner of the bungalow can never ever sell his property for more than Rs. 80 crores and 2.) the prisoners of the jails must be having fun with such surroundings. On an whole it was not worth the visit but when you are at a mercy of a travel agent, you cannot decide or choose your areas to visit. The following day was fun when we enjoyed the company of each other, had a dip in the sea along with yummy food at the beachside. There comes a feeling of satisfaction and saturation and then you really realize that what else you need from life to give you. Now was a time to pack up from beach and rush towards cruse for which we had already taken the tickets. The one hour on the cruse was a real waste of time, energy and money. And then we gave it a second thought that are we really here for such things? But then we decided to take this as a lesson for our next visit to this place. With this we ended our day’s journey and after taking an halt at Vasco to make a decision as to whether to hire a cab or a bike for the coming day, we took the quotations from the different agents present there. We came back, and mutually agreeing to take a cab for tomorrow also, we had a peaceful (not so yummy) dinner and slept to wake up early the next morning.

Day 4: 17^th April’ 2015

A happening day and a super lovely time was in store for us. We went to Church and prayed. That is the place where you have to believe that miracles actually happens by seeing a body of a saint kept for 432 years and the most astonishing thing is that no chemical or preservative is used to maintain that body. If this is not miracle then what will you call it? After that we had the fun of shopping. We shopped different things for people back home, drank mango shake and then finally moved towards our next destination i.e. beach for the beach lovers and water lovers like us. This is the place where a super hit film of Amir khan was shot but if one has to believe in the beauty of the place, then it does not need any marketing of this sort. It was really beautiful. Staying at a beautiful, clear, clean beach, eating yummy food, watching the tides of the sea and just thinking about nothing else other than enjoying the company of your man is the real essence of life. Finally it was the time to conclude a super amazing memorable day spent with even a wonderful company and that is what we did after reaching back to the guest house.

Day 5: 18^th April’ 2015

On a day on vacation what else you want other than a late wake up call? This is what we decided this day to be like. We booked a cab pick-up at 1 in the afternoon. After having our breakfast we went back in the room and relaxed in the silent company of each other, which otherwise is a rare thing to happen. This day we decided to rush directly to the yesterday’s beach and again started with yummy lunch and chilled drinks. We had a lonely peaceful time there. And while coming back to guest house in the evening we decided to capture the GOA pictures in our mind so as to have a long lasting impact on our memories as this was the last day of our travel in Goa. Although the place full of sea, culture, relaxed attitude of people, slow paced life and comfortably moving traffic on small roads makes Goa a wonderful destination to relax but home is where your soul is. Afterall you sometimes misses the mess of your home, the dust all around as the room not being dusted for days and everyday problem of water, light, selling neighbours etc. etc. And this is exactly what makes you want to go back home.

Day 6: 19^th April’ 2015

A morning wake up call, well served meals, a place full of people who are ready to serve you anytime, a place where you need not to worry about cleaning, washing and preparing meals is now ready to say good bye to us. We are ready to fly back to our city of DILWALLAS'. A vehicle came in to pick us up from the guest house and to drop us to airport came on time and we finally boarded the cab. GOA airport is not huge in size, no matter it is a destination for many international passengers. But still it was a comfortable one to accommodate us for a good 1.5 hours before we fly. 40 degrees in Delhi, a messy room waiting for ms, a place where you have to arrange everything from A to Z on your own, sounds not so comfortable one to go to but believe me, you will be most comfortable at home only, no matters what and how it is.

Landing at home was an end to a beautiful, peaceful and a loving journey.

NOW WE ARE GETTING READY FOR ANOTHER ONE NOW!

Since now I am 30 :)

Since now I am 30, I just thought to seek advises from the older friends, readers and all others around me to suggest me with tips they would give to their 30-years-old selves. The idea was to crowd-source the life experience from the older and experienced ones and to be able to come-up with another blog based on their collective wisdom.

The result was spectacular. I received over 600 responses. It took me a solid three days to read through them all and I was floored by the quality of insight people sent.

So first of all, hearty thank you to all who contributed and helped create the present set of work readable and full of experienced insights.

It seems that there really are a few core pieces of advice that are particularly relevant to this decade of your life.

Below are 10 of the most common themes appearing throughout all of the responses.

1. START SAVING FOR RETIREMENT NOW, NOT LATER

The most common piece of advice — so common that almost every single one said at least something about it — was to start getting your financial house in order and to start saving for retirement… today.

There were a few categories this advice fell into:

Make it your top priority to pay down all of your debt as soon as possible.

Keep an “emergency fund” — there were tons of horror stories about people getting financially ruined by health issues, bad business deals, etc.

Stash away a portion of every pay-check, into some investment option or at the least, a savings account. But don’t invest in anything you don’t understand. Don’t spend frivolously.

The point was clear: save early and save as much as possible. It’s always possible. You just have to do it.

2. START TAKING CARE OF YOUR HEALTH NOW, NOT LATER

Your mind’s acceptance of age is 10 to 15 years behind your body’s aging. Your health will go faster than you think but it will be very hard to notice, not the least because you don’t want it to happen.

We all know to take care of our health. We all know to eat better and sleep better and exercise more and blah, blah, blah. But still we only know and do nothing much about it. So the advice was to get healthy and stay healthy now.

They say that the way you treat your body has a cumulative effect; it’s not that your body suddenly breaks down one year, it’s been breaking down all along without you noticing. This is the decade to slow down that breakage.

And this wasn’t just your typical motherly advice to eat your veggies. All the experienced ones said the same thing: “If I could go back, I would start eating better and exercising and I would not stop. I made excuses then. But I had no idea.”

3. DON’T SPEND TIME WITH PEOPLE WHO DON’T TREAT YOU WELL

Learn how to say “no” to people, activities and obligations that don’t bring value to your life.

Gently let go of those who are not making your life better. All those who have already crossed this decade of their age wants to go back and enforce stronger boundaries in their lives and dedicate their time to better people.

What does that mean specifically?

It means, don’t tolerate people who don’t treat you well. Don’t settle for mediocre friends, jobs, love, relationships and life. Stay away from miserable people… they will consume you, drain you.

People typically struggle with boundaries because they find it difficult to hurt someone else’s feelings, or they get caught up in the desire to change the other person or make them treat them the way they want to be treated. This never works. And in fact, it often makes it worse. As one wisely said, “Selfishness and self-interest are two different things. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.”

After all there is no shortage of people to meet and friends to be made, and that there’s no reason to waste our time with people who don’t help us on our life’s path.

4. BE GOOD TO THE PEOPLE YOU CARE ABOUT

Show up with and for your friends. You matter, and your presence matters. Conversely, while enforcing stricter boundaries on who we let into our lives, many advised to make the time for those friends and family that we do decide to keep close.

Appreciate those close to you. You can get money back and jobs back, but you can never get time back.

5. YOU CAN’T HAVE EVERYTHING; FOCUS ON DOING A FEW THINGS REALLY WELL

Everything in life is a trade-off. You give up one thing to get another and you can’t have it all. Accept that.

In our 20s we have a lot of dreams. We believe that we have all of the time in the world. And that is the time we lose our focus.

In a word: focus. You can simply get more done in life if you focus on one thing and do it really well. Focus more.

Just focus on one or two goals/aspirations/dreams and really work towards them. Don’t get distracted. You just have to accept that you cannot do everything. It takes a lot of sacrifice to achieve anything special in life.

6. BE KIND TO YOURSELF, RESPECT YOURSELF

Be a little selfish and do something for yourself every day, something different once a month and something spectacular every year. Just treat yourself better. There is no one who cares about or thinks about your life a fraction of what you do, life is hard, so learn to love yourself now, it’s harder to learn later.

This brings me to the last line of my this blog and that is

“Thank you to everyone who contributed.”