Sweet and sour

We were having dinner in the village near Munger,Gautam Sigh a bhoomihar had taken us to his ancestral house. We had a grueling outing of badminton match in the morning against railways in their court,we had gone there representing IOC,Barauni Refinery. It was in December,1971 and that day was chura dahi festival.
We were sitting around a table full of sweets of all varieties, chura,dahi and pickle. I tentatively ate a few sweets and found my tongue was not able take any more sweet. Gautam looked at me and said " Roydada you cannot stop,so much is left."
"No,yar,can't take any more of sweet my tongue is saturated. "
He laughed and said , "That's why the pickle,you take that and it will help to rejuvenate your taste bud and then take more sweet."
Yes,friends in life too if we don't have challenges or problems and when those get resolved then the satisfaction what we get cannot be substituted by anything. It has been about 20 years since my retirement but still I love solving problems be it in office ,society or personal issues.
For example the other day my wife was struggling with Amazon Firestick in our bedroom TV,mind it I am no TV mechanic but could resolve the issue by following some fuzzy logic. After resolving I felt as though I have reached the peak of Mount Everest ,yes that's the kind of kick I got.
Now I am deeply involved in resolving an issue related with water pump which supplies water to 3 overhead tanks placed on the top of three 11storied towers consisting of more than 220 flats in our housing complex which came into existence in 1984,the original pump supplier BE pump has shut shop some 8 years back and out of 3 pumps we are now relying on1 pump as spares are not available for the other 2. I used my resources and located some people dealing with BE pump . It was like detective work burrowing the details matching with our system. This process of working out a solution is kicking up my adrenaline as we are coming closer to the solution and which is an engineering solution. 
Like the rest of the occupants I had the choice of not getting involved but as I mentioned the problem resolving is like pickle to me so that the sweetness of success I can relish. All the equipment are about 40 years old and there are recurring problem, problems related with lifts,HV,LV switchgear,transformers, DG set etc gets referred to me.
Very recently i got drive gear assembly of lift replaced.Routinely we are replacing the rope of the lifts. Three months back i got supervised the repair of the generator of DG set. My postulation about life is that most of the problems are man made and is possible to resolve, in the process your wits get sharpened no matter which age you are in numerically. In other words you will forget about your age as society still needs you.
I wrote this piece for my retired friends,resolve your problem by yourself, I know children are there to take care but slowly you will become redundant due to over dependence.
 I always end my such blog with my tag line "take it or leave it!" Choice is yours.

Remember!
"Happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them.” Charles De Montesquieu

What do i remember?

What do I remember?

Another year has started, not by itself but as declared by calendar. Like any other day there is no change of routine of the sun, it came up as per schedule but we human have the power of thinking so for us 1^st of January is kind of reminder that another year gone or another year has come. Our aging does not depend on calendar, we age by nanoseconds, our DNA,gene etc drive the process which depends directly or indirectly on our life style too.

The above preamble is just hard facts which are undeniable cutting across caste, creed,religion and region. The main operating system is our mind and which is the real driver. I have heard people writing or saying that they are happy, I think it is more of self-assertion for himself. If someone ask me today what has been my happiest moment, then I cannot reply immediately. The problem is that when one gets that happy moment then he does not keep track, it just happens. So looking back the year gone I would remember those physically satisfying things like purchase of latest gadgets, arrival of a new born baby, travelling to exotic places, chilling out with friends, playing a satisfying round of game, reading a book, hearing a new song etc…the list is long. As I was postulating that happiness is the moment and which does not get recorded in conscious mind but subconscious stores it. Somedays I get up feeling happy but I don’t know the reason what triggered it. May be the getting up, the sun light, surrounding silence, fitness of body, looking forward to something etc all put together created that oft mentioned cliche, feel good factor.

The other day while talking to Dr,Kamal Chakraborty I commented that I always find him happy, then I derived that as everyday he is not working for himself but for those poor 200 plus tribal kids in his setup Bhalopahar and that selfless deed of his keeps him perpetually happy. So looking back I can say I too felt happy whenever I was doing something for Bhalopahar or for those poor boys of Tollygaunge slums. Last year I started colour painting and while putting colour I was mentally transported to those places same way as I feel while reading a book, all these feelings again get lodged in subconscious and for which we don’t have a key to push.

It is simple, as they say, happiness is the state of mind. Try enabling that mind to capture more positive thoughts so that those are present predominantly in the subconscious.

A very Happy New Year.