Baseline being - 'We are all scapegoats'...

For a country that takes everything religiously - from cricket to movies to whatsapp forwards, I would be no exception when I say a movie's after effects mull in my head for almost a week. And that would be stronger if I watched a movie just yesterday that pertains indirectly to politics and my state is due for elections in a month.

Politics has always been a subject of intrigue and interest for me, at least my state politics. I love eavesdropping on every discussion around me that involves politics and mainly I am eavesdropping on discussions between a group of men during my bus travels or around my farm or in my village.
Oh, we Indians love our politics, don't we!!??

While keeping this as the background, I watched a Kannada movie that portrayed how youngsters, especially young men, with a little crowd following in their local areas, are puppeteered by political big goons with power in their hands. These young local leaders have a considerable crowd following in their villages/towns and over run by passion and zeal sometimes lose out on thinking rationally or logically. When emotions run amok, our politicians beat the iron rod and bend them for their personal benefits without even considering the larger good.

These thoughts were echoing in my head the whole of today when I came across this news article of how our state politicians are using one sect of people, unluckily the one I was born into, to lessen the vote base of the opposite party. Their strategic move of removing this sect from Hinduism and giving a minority tag line worked wonders and gathered certain big sect leaders support for the party. Nonetheless the opposite party projected their main candidate from this sect as well, were now in quicksand having lost some guaranteed support to the strategic move of the ruling party.

But in all these strategies and counter strategies who exactly is gaining and losing!!?? The general public is certainly losing. A sect that was founded by a person who wanted to wipe away the caste system and emphasise that God is on our body always and our work and character determines if He is pleased or not. Such a sect is now divided on lines of minority or not!!

The anger in me is seething on how utter scapegoats we tend to be and by whom - most of our leaders would not have studied even half of the educational degrees our State majority population has and they end up making fools of us.

For all those fellow Kannadigas who are going to vote next month, its my sincere request to you all that at least this time let us be wise and not select a fool for our leader based on something as regardless sect and caste!!

The so called 'Career' break..

The word 'CAREER' itself gets me on my nerves end and the past eight years I have been getting a dose of this word on a daily basis!!

So what exactly is this career? I have never seemed to get a grasp of its meaning or pertinence. At times I get so muddled in my head about this word that I start thinking that career means life and life means career. Or rather the society around me puts this muddled up definition in to my already muddled head😃

When I cleared my professional exams quite early in life, I thought my career's growth spike would never dip and I was on a career roller coaster ride. Good money, no obligations, complete freedom - what more could a person in their early twenties ask for!!?? But only when the basic materialistic needs are fulfilled that your mind and soul crave for the soul soothers and my soul was no different. Very early in my 'career' I decided to take a "Career Break"!

When I took this decision, was when all hell broke lose in my inner circle of folks. All kinds of suggestions and advises poured in as to why this break would ruin my career or maybe success was getting into me. Those advises and suggestions came from people who meant my well-being and were looking out for me.

Cutting the story short, at present I have come back to being a professional after almost 4 years of leaving my last professional job and after many job changes before that. My resume is an utter puzzle of numerous job changes with gap years in between.

But I can say this with a personal guarantee that getting back to the profession was not very easy but it was not impossible either. After a trying period of 4 months, I can easily say that I am quite okay and comfortable being back in the profession I first decided to quit around 7 years back.

And for all the years that I took a 'career' gap, I have undergone such amazing personally rewarding journeys that those gap year experiences has made me a much matured, more balanced and sensible human being who is in a better position to be called a 'Professional' now. I have realized one basic truth - every professional has its own requisite skill sets but the underlying foundation for all careers are innate human values - sensibility, maturity of mind, inner balance and ability to differentiate between your needs and wants!

For all those individuals who want to explore themselves but have been putting it on hold because of the fear of a 'career break', I implore you to get over the fear and begin that self-exploration journey, so as to come back to your career, if need be, with stronger human values which itself will ensure that your career gets rocketed faster due to your gap years rather than plummet due to them.

HAPPY CAREER BREAK!!!