Why do I fight? What to do about anger?

I know I have anger within me. The source is internal, not external. Though, it may seem external the cause is internal.

I want to be free of suffering. Free of anger. Be a loving person.

What is the strategy to come out of suffering?

1. Meditate 1.5 hour in the morning; Give metta at the end of every meditation
2. Meditate 1.5 hour in the evening; Give metta at the end of every meditation
3. Give metta to yourself at the end of every meditation
4. Don't be too hard on yourself
5. Exercise daily
6. Know in advance situations and conversations that make me angry
7. Observe my breath and sensations during tense situations
8. Keep my mouth shut -- do not react -- when I am agitated
9. Don't talk unnecessarily
10. Don't worry about things that are not under my control
11. Track Vipassana log everyday

Vipassana can help eradicate impurities, little by little. Don't expect miracles. If you have a lot of impurities in you, the process can take a long time - a few lifetimes

Things I like about my father

My father is a wonderful human being. Yet, I have had a difficult relationship with him over the years. Here is a list of things I like about my father.

1. His generosity - he is generous to the core. He gives more to others than what he keeps for himself. 
2. His loving kindness - he is kind to all living beings - be it people or animals. Be it wealthy or poor. He is kind to one and all.
3. His friendliness - even though my father has not been successful financially, he has countless friends. This is because he is a good human being. People feel safe around him. People like themselves when they are with him.
4. His love and care for his children - he has dedicated most of his adult life to the well being of his children, even when his children have had bitter relationship with him at times
5. His dedication to my mother - he has patiently taken care of my mother's health issues, even though they have had differences most of their lives
6. His dedication to my grandparents - he worked day and night to look after my grandparents during their old age, which lasted for more than 10 years. He took care of them without complaining, even though he had a bitter relationship with his father.
7. His sense of adventure - he has been bold through his youth and most of his adult life. He has not been afraid to lose his wealth, fame, or life to pursue something in his life. He perhaps lacked perseverance, but he has been willing to take chances in his life, and has faced failures smilingly for the most part.
8. His love for art, literature, music, nature, and finer things in life -- my father is responsible for my interest in nature, literature, music, fine arts, travel, and culture
9. His passion for healthy lifestyle - my father is responsible for inculcating my passion for healthy lifestyle -- be it swimming, skiing, yoga, hiking, or eating healthy
10. His spirituality - he believes in not harming other. I am most grateful to him for introducing me to Vipassana meditation to get rid of impurities in my mind. He helped me lead to the gem of Vipassana in my life. I am indebted to him for the rest of my lives for helping me find Vipassana.
11. His equanimity -- his ability to smile at ups and downs in life
12. His love, respect, and affection for my wife
13. His athleticism -- my father was very athletic during his school years
14. His ability to maintain relationships -- even to this day, his childhood friends remember him very fondly. In fact, it was one of his school friends who provided me with financial documents to come to the US
15. His tireless patience and help in finding me a wife

Year 2014

2014 has been a year of changes. Change is the only constant in life. Buddha says everything is impermanent, changing, annica all the time -- every kalapa changes trillions of times in a moment. This feeling of anncia can be felt at subtle level. Today, I want to talk about major changes in my life that were quite apparent.

The year started with my return from India in January. I had gone to meet a few girls for matrimonial purpose. I had gone this time with a strong determination to get married. Unfortunately, I could not find a suitable match -- either the horoscopes didn't match, the girls didn't want to come to the US, or they didn't like me. I came home empty handed. Though, I was very happy to spend time with my family and my nieces.

After returning from India, I was struggling a bit. It is always tough to adjust to life in the US once I have spent happy times with family in India. I have not been able to find the warmth and love in the US that comes flowing so naturally to me in India. I went to Dhamma Siri in Kaufman the first free weekend I could find since my return to the US. The vibrations at the meditation center helped me during that time.

Once I adjusted to life in the US, I started searching for a match again with all my might. I tried Shaadi.com, called friends, called friends' friends, and any acquaintance who could help me find a match. I also expanded my search for proposals outside of the major metro areas in India and also included professions other than just software engineering.   

Due to my good luck, I came across a profile of a lovely lady from a small town in India. She appeared as someone who is kind, loving, and health conscious woman. Her eyes radiated with love and serenity. I expressed interest in her profile, which she (actually her sister on her behalf) accepted. The sister sent me the profile with additional info and I reciprocated in kind. Then, I spoke with the girl's brother who gave me the girl's phone number. The day I called her, she was visiting her sister in Delhi. The conversation went beautifully well -- she sounded sweet, kind, loving -- someone without any pretense or hidden agenda. I liked her right away and decided to pursue the proposal further. We then had a few Skype sessions, a few phone calls, a few calls with her mother and brother. Everything seemed to be going well. We then decided to meet in person and agreed that if we like each other in person, we will get married on my trip.

I then went to India again in April to meet the girl with my parents. We went to Tenali, a small town in southern India. Being from Mumbai, we had never explored south India. Her brother came to pick us up at Vijaywada airport. He was just as nice, simple, and easy going as the girl we were about to meet. We stayed at Gautham -- a new hotel in Tenali. That afternoon, we went to meet the girl at her house. My first impression of meeting the girl in person was that she is everything I had thought she would be -- kind, loving, pleasing to the eye, soft spoken, and well cultured. I also felt the girl was much more spiritually advanced than I was. This is something I had never felt in my interactions with other girls. The girl then took me to a room for a private meeting. We spoke about our likes, dislikes, expectations, desires, and such. She told she would like to work after marriage, which I thought was a good thing. We both liked each other in our face-to-face meeting. My parents also liked the girl very much.

We returned to the hotel that afternoon, hoping I would get married on this trip. That evening the girl and her family along with their family friend came to meet us at the hotel. We got engaged and exchanged sweets. We were all very happy. We were just waiting for the wedding date, which we thought would be the day of Akhat Treej that Friday.

As luck would have it, the girl's family decided not to get her married on this trip. But instead wait for sometime so that they could invite their relatives for the wedding. We returned to Mumbai the next day -- happy that I was engaged and a little disappointed that I did not get married on that trip.

I then left for the US the Friday or Saturday of that week. We continued talking over the phone and Skype whenever we could. I realized the girl is extremely busy with two jobs and part-time help at her brother's store. This affected our ability to communicate more often, which upset me a lot. Like a fool, I expressed my discontent to the girl in a harsh manner. Unfortunately, I may have planted the first seed of fear in the girl after that incident. I tried to convince the girl and her family to send her to the US on fiancee visa as that will get processed faster and will allow me and the girl to stay together after our marriage. Unfortunately, I did not succeed in convincing them to send the girl to the US on fiancee visa.

Our wedding date was set for June 22. I went to India -- third time in a year -- a couple of days before the wedding. There wasn't much time between when we decided to get married and the wedding date. But we went ahead with the wedding ceremony and reception in Tenali. The next day, we went to get the marriage certificate. Once we got the marriage certificate, we left for Ahmedabad through Hyderabad. We finished the formalities in my ancestors' village and returned to Mumbai that night. It was a non-stop-travel for over 24 hours. We were exhausted. We were greeted by our friendly neighbors once we arrived at our home in Mumbai. Since the house was in a run-down condition, we spent the first night in a hotel. I made the mistake again of not going slow and tender on our first night. While we did not consummate our marriage that night, I did not do a good job of helping my wife lose her fear of me either. She was very upset, angry, and scared at the same time.

The next morning, we went home for breakfast and lunch, and then left for Igatpuri for a few days of honeymoon. The honeymoon was good time to get to know my wife. But again, reflecting back, I feel that I was a bit aggressive and impatient with her. On the last day of our honeymoon, which was a Sunday, we consummated our marriage. We returned to Mumbai that afternoon and had a wedding reception hosted by my parents.

Once the wedding celebrations were over, we took care of some legal matter such as opening a joint bank account, getting affidavit for our wedding from my uncle, aunt, and cousin. I was to work from India that week, but couldn't do much work. We were enjoying each other's company and our intimacy was growing. We were physically intimate a total of 13 times in the few days we spent together -- every other day, three times a day. I was exhausted!

I returned to the US a married man -- happy, relieved, and a bit nervous. I then applied for my wife's visa and have been waiting for her arrival in the US for almost six months now. I feel this long separation has been hard for both of us. It has created a lot of misunderstanding, a few fights, and we seem to be losing affection for each other. Life can be harsh at times, but one has to just accept it.

Besides getting married in 2014, I sold one of my houses, moved into a new house, and started renovating the new house.

All in all, it has been a great 2014. I am looking forward to 2015 and everything that awaits for me and my wife. 

Things I like about Leena

Things I like about Leena

1. Her smile
2. Her loving nature
3. Her kindness
4. Her understanding nature
5. Her caring and nurturing nature
6. Her eyes
7. Her simplicity
8. Her family values
9. Her capacity to work hard
10. Her determination and strong willpower
11. Her innocence about many things in life
12. Her faith
13. Her big breasts
14. Her desire to have a family
15. Her desire to lead a healthy lifestyle
16. Her respect and love for my parents
17. Her desire to have a career post marriage
18. Her willingness to adjust to life in the US
19. Her willingness to move back to India if I want to
20. Her desire to make me happy
21. Her shyness
22. Her soft voice
23. Her nose
24. Her cheekbones
25. Her purity

Image Consulting

Today I met with an image consultant in hopes of improving my image. Past managers and mentors have told me that I lack executive presence, diplomatic skills, sophistication, inter-personal skills, and energy to advance to the executive level. Today's meeting was my attempt to find out what I can do to address these concerns.

The coach and I first discussed the current situation and explored the internal and external factors that may be hindering my progress. The external factors we identified are micro-managing manager, the current organization structure, the organization culture, and newness of my role to the organization. My role is perhaps not well received by the organization because it is a new role in this organization. The functional leaders are not accustomed to having a project manager run projects. They are probably feeling threatened by my role. The way to address these external factors is to have one-on-one off-site meetings with functional leaders to understand how they perceive my role and how I could help them better in serving the organization. The key is to be sincere in these meetings and don't put them on-guard.

The internal factors we identified are lack of confidence and professional aloofness. The way to address these internal factors are to be more transparent, share personal stories with employees, employ self-deprecating humor, and allow people to connect with me. The time spent with people is not a waste of time, but it is an opportunity to connect with them. These are some of the self-limiting beliefs that I need to overcome.

To address the issue of low energy level, the coach recommended I practice speaking at one octave stronger and use mid-torso (the energy zone) when speaking. The coach recommended using hand gestures at the mid-torso level while communicating.

Then we talked about how to develop a professional image. The coach recommended using power color when choosing clothes. Black, grey, chocolate, olive, and burgundy are some of the power colors. When choosing clothes, I should choose shirts and pants that match tone on tone. The shoes should be leather, hard soled, and in great repair. This connotes success and confidence. The buttons on the shirt should match the color of the shirt. On Fridays, I can wear super dark jeans with good Italian shoes and good leather belt.

We also talked about sending 360 degree surveys to MBA cohorts, current colleagues, past colleagues, and friends to get more data on how people perceive me. This will provide us with rich data to identify patterns of behaviors that are helping and hindering my progress.

The coach also recommended the following books to help improve my likability and image.

1. Likability Factor by Tim Sanders
2. Everyone Communicates, Few Connect by John Maxwell
3. What go you hear won't get you there by Marsha Goldsmith
4. Primal Leadership by Daniel Goldman

Emotional intelligence is an art. It is such a crucial part of leading a happy and successful personal and professional life. I want to improve my emotional intelligence.

Spring 2011

Spring, 2011 at McCombs is over now. The semester went by too quickly. We started the semester the day after MLK Day. I'd broken my big toe at Barsana Dham on the morning of the first day of class and was in a lot of pain. What a way to start the semester!

Professor May set the stage on the first day of class by communicating how rigorous the Accounting class would be. He was true to his word. His class was challenging, exciting, and required a lot of hard work -- just the way I like it. While I found some of the Accounting concepts and lectures difficult to understand, I thoroughly enjoyed the class. I can now analyze a company's financial statements, better understand business news in the Wall Street Journal, and appreciate how and why executives manage inventory, capital leases, sales returns, allowance for bad debts, and COCI accounts to influence financial statements. I also got introduced to the concepts of valuations of a business -- book value, fair value (liquidation value), and going concern value of a business. When a company reports goodwill on its balance sheet, I now know that it is a going concern premium the company paid for acquiring another company! Professor May said I did well in his class, and he rewarded me with an appropriate grade.

The second class for the spring semester was Economics. It is perhaps my favorite class so far at McCombs. Professor Brandal made the class interesting with his high energy and his entertaining, yet, simple teaching style. He was an entertainer, a story teller, a bit whimsical, and unconventional professor. The class started with the concepts of micro economics. We studied supply and demand curves, how changes in price cause movements along supply and demand curves, how factors other than price shift supply and demand curves, concepts of substitutes and complements, elastic and inelastic demands, and how as a manager I should convince customers there are no substitutes (in their mind) for my products or services. We then studied concepts of utility and indifference curves and how as managers we should focus on maximizing our customers' utility. The micro-economics class continued with concepts of economic cost, which is made up of accounting cost and opportunity cost. As a manager, I need to consider fixed cost, variable cost, total cost, and average total cost. The big takeaway was to produce output at the level where marginal benefit is equal to marginal cost. The most interesting part of the micro class was the study of four different market structures -- perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic, and oligopoly -- and what strategies managers should follow in competing in those markets. We studied the concept of game theory, in the context of oligopoly market, dominant strategy, nash equilibrium, and different strategies for one-shot and repeated simultaneous and sequential games.       

During the second half of the semester, we studied macro economic concepts. We learned the concepts of aggregate demand, aggregate supply, GDP and how to measure it, concept of inflation and how to measure it, Keynesian theories and modern theories on how to address unemployment, inflation, recession, and depression using monetary and fiscal policies. The macroeconomics concepts were complex and fascinating. I hope I get a chance to use these concepts as a manager in my career.

During the last part of the semester, we covered global economy using the concepts of foreign exchange rates, their impact on economy, the need to have stable exchange rates in the short run, and the dangers of trying to fix exchange rates in the long run.

Besides school, I also made progress on the job front during the semester. After nearly six months of unemployment, I started working at Thermo. I am very fortunate to be working again. The spring semester tested my time management skill to balance both school and work load. At times, I felt that I had no time to breathe! The semester was that hectic. The spring semester seemed shorter than the fall and seemed to go by quickly. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the semester.

Once the semester was over, I moved to Round Rock. After living in Austin for nearly 13 years, I found it little hard to leave the city. But, I am learning to be more flexible these days! I am slowly adjusting to my new life in Round Rock and can't wait to see what lies ahead.

swimming

My father introduced me to swimming when I was very young. He once took me and my sister to Vaghji bhaini khadi -- a local pool in our neighborhood in Bombay -- when we were about seven or eight years old. I have a vague memory of that visit -- green pool water, large crowd of people in the water, some with Dalda tin can tied to their waist, friendly screams and shouts of swimmers, my father pushing me and my sister into the water, and the terror we felt at being in the pool. How scared I was of water then! After that experience, I never visited that pool again or any other pool for a long time.

After not so successful first attempt at swimming, I mustered up enough courage in my late teens to give swimming another try. It must have been during a school break after the 10th grade or 12th grade exams that I went to a swim club in Andheri. I can't recall the name of the club anymore, but it was an Olympic size pool with two sections -- one for swimming laps and the other for platform diving. The swim club was offering lessons during summer break, so I signed up for it. I used to take the train in the morning and then walk from the railway station to the pool for lessons. Later, I used to ride my bicycle to the pool from home, but it was a long, excruciating ride. Like any other place in Bombay, the swimming pool was crowded, especially during summer break. There were so many people in the pool that you couldn't take two strokes without running into somebody. So the swim instructors had us place our feet behind a bar that ran across the pool length and practice stationary freestyle stroke! How innovative those instructors were! I didn't learn much about swimming at the Andheri club, but I still have fond memories of that pool. I think I developed interest in swimming at this place. Once I started college, I completely stopped swimming during the four years of college.

After moving to Arizona, I began swimming again. The university had such nice swim facilities -- one in the student recreation center and the other for the school varsity swim team. I took a swim class and learned a bit more about how to coordinate breathing while swimming. I really started to enjoy swimming. I also joined the US Masters Swim program at the university, but realized that I wasn't yet ready for an organized swim program. I left Arizona with an increased appreciation for swimming and hoped that one day soon I could learn to swim better.

After moving to Austin, I found a swim club in my neighborhood and, fortunately, a very fine coach. I consider Jimmy Bynum my first real coach. He taught me the basics of swimming. I sincerely appreciated his patience and willingness to coach me for the two years I swam at his club. He made me realize that I could swim in an organized swim program and develop my skills. I then swam at a few different places in town and learned from different coaches -- each one of them adding something of value to my skill set and increasing my appreciation for swimming.

I currently swim with the Longhorn Aquatics under the guidance of a former Olympian. I enjoy the early morning workouts, no matter how hard they can be on my body. As a matter of fact, my body is still recovering from a strenuous workout this morning. There is something about swimming with a group of fun loving, fitness oriented, disciplined, and hardworking swimmers, at a world class facility under a fine coach, that seems to push me harder in my practice. No matter how sleepy or lazy I may feel about going to the practice, I almost always feel great after the workout. I am always glad and grateful when I can start my day with an early morning swim. The water seems to take away my stress and worries and seems to rejuvenate me with its magical powers. I am definitely in love with swimming now.


I am grateful to my father for introducing me to swimming. I am also grateful to my coaches for helping me enjoy the sport of swimming over the years.