Sunday, 20 November 2016

Matter of Values!!

Matter of Values!

Lately, my two year old daughter has by-hearted this phrase “Daddy what’s the matter?” The other day we promised to take her to beach if she sits in the car seat and be a good girl. She pretty much was in anticipation of her reward until we drove home without taking her to the beach. First words she exclaimed watching me reverse back into garage, “Daddy what’s the matter with beach?” I gave her some gibberish reason and she cutely accepted.

Later on, I thought I shouldn’t be doing this to a two year old, for two reasons. First, “Integrity” being one of my core values if I exhibit this behaviour to my kids, it would register in their subconscious brain and would later on become part of their personality. Second, Aanya & I both love the beach so not to miss out on great opportunity to escape from the grind.

Our value system is reflection of our personality because it feeds off directly from the experiences our brain had registered in past. For example, if “love & connection” is one of my values then I’m bound to have certain rules around looks, dress up, appearance and what I portray to the outside world. People with such values would want people to admire them when they look good and they do the same to others. It is part of the basic instinct “dress to impress” and becomes their second nature and a rule ensuring they wear their attitude.

Now if someone stops them from dressing up nicely or objects to their appearance they feel attacked and would react either passively or aggressively. In my personal experience best way to stop such retaliation is to be authentic to them and vice versa. Irrespective of colour, race or sex value does matter because it is deep ingrained in our neural pathways based on personal experiences we have since childhood. They are your rulebook to decide what’s right or wrong when faced by situational or emotional dilemma.

So when in doubt speak to your values…


“It is not hard to make a decision when you know what your values are” – Roy Disney

Friday, 2 September 2016

The Secret to Future

The Secret to Future

"The Secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine" - Mike Murdock

There is so much to learn in our lifetimes through various instances, experiences & routines. Somebody once said to me "Success doesn't happen in a day, it happens daily" back then I wasn't quite convinced by that statement. Primarily because I use to measure my success by monetary gain or fame. I use to feel that one day I would be successful but later on I realised, it was just a mirage.

You can't wait lifelong for a magic day to occur instead we need to create magic daily. All that time when you laugh out loud, celebrate, mingle with friends/family and people you love they are the times of success. All that time when you experience the emotions of love, care, joy, friendship and togetherness are the times of success, these are the real magic moments we should cherish. These are the times we live our life! it is not the destination but fulfilling journey we should use to measure our successes.

It is not just some day, it happens every day... it is not something to achieve but it is something to pursue every day. As rightly put in one my favorite Will Smith movies... "The Pursuit of Happyness"

Christopher Gardner: It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that?



Yours,

Arvind J Baswan


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Wednesday, 17 August 2016

Let me connect

Every personality has their weak and strong phases, I have never come across someone who was made of complete steel (apart from Superman of-course!!). On contrary, I've seen a lot of people faking it, portraying something they aren't may be due to popular mantra "fake it till you make it". There is nothing wrong in that as long as if you are doing it for a good reason and not to showoff, like a job interview - where 80% people fake something or rather (that's what statistics say).

Indeed it is quite natural instinct to put out your best, isn't it? I mean almost every one wears a Shield or Armour or a strong-suit at times it is needed to hide your vulnerabilities. But there are times when we should put our guards down and allow our own personality to reveal.

It is totally up to you to choose who that person in your life is? with who you could be just yourself, with whom you don't have to wear that Armour anymore and with whom we can reveal your true self.

This is what I call "having a connection". This is when your heart and soul gets the opportunity to touch others, this is when you form a bond. I wish everyone finds that person.

To some lucky ones, connections  are made in a heartbeat and for some of us it takes a lifetime. Some of us enjoy it for their whole lifetime and some of us wait for it for a lifetime. This is what happens to our protagonist in my latest romance drama feature "Bhindeshi Tara - A foreign star in the sky ". Saikat Majumdar (the lead character) who is a press photo journalist falls in love with a girl of Armenian decent during a time of political turmoil in Calcutta.

Saikat spends a lifetime waiting for someone he loved, it only took a heartbeat for that connection which lasted a lifetime. This was the magical dance during a gala night (shown in picture above) when Saikat holds his would be lovers hand and gets engrossed in her beautiful blue eyes.

I will reveal a more about Saikat and his charming lady love (name to be revealed in my next blog), until then please enjoy your time with your loved ones and do take a moment to connect and say "I Love You".

If you like this blog, please share it on your timeline on Facebook, Twitter and Social media to help us complete our crowd funding target by clicking here: Bhindeshi Tara Development Fund.


Yours,
Arvind J Baswan
#GreenlabFilms

Thursday, 4 August 2016

Emotional Baggage!

Emotional Baggage!

As you all know we have hit Pre-production with my latest feature film Bhindeshi Tara, I wanted to share one of our character's journey and relate it to my personal experience.

But before that can I ask you a questions?

How do you manage your emotional well-being?

Some of you might say: work out, sports, socialising, yoga, meditation etc. but I wanted to bring your focus to one thing, how we manage our emotional well-being carries immense importance in our life.

Sometimes we forget to realise we are all but emotions and feelings. That's what makes us human! That's what sets us apart from rest of the species! i.e. the ability to understand and manage our own emotions.

Yesterday, I had a tough discussion with a friend's Dad, not because I wanted to belittle him but I wanted to let off some emotional baggage off my chest. I wanted to keep my relationship healthy and firm with my friend and his family.

Sometimes we let things creep in between our relationships that does not resonates with our own personalities. Just because we start governing ourselves by some "unsaid rules", what we forget to realise about life is that it constantly changes. We also need to adjust and update our own set of rules based on what we are going through. Based upon how life is shaping us and others around us, after-all well-being is all about being up to date and flexible. On contrary, emotional baggage is all about being stubborn and making us and our relationships fragile.

This is what exactly happens with Mr. Tarafdar, our protagonist Saikat Tarafdar's Dad, a father who was willing to spoil his son's life but not change his rules around how someone (his son's girlfriend) should be? He ironically keeps imposing his own rules on people around him, that not only breaks his son's heart but also makes him suffer for rest of his life!

Hope you would choose to be more flexible in life after seeing our film. Kindly help us complete our crowd funding target by clicking here: Bhindeshi Tara Development Fund.

Until my next blog... Farewell!

@amazing_arvind
#GreenlabFilms



Thursday, 26 May 2016

Monsoon Rain



Monsoon has just hit India and I wrote this poem last week, nostalgic old days.. Need to kindle love gods to make my new script (Romance/Drama) turn in to reality... Here it goes!

Monsoon rain…

I know that I can't fly, but sometimes I feel like flying…

Fly and come near to you,

To tell you how much I care about you…

I think about you when you are not near,

Countless ponder, can't help my dear…

It makes my heart cry,

With every breath I sigh,

Sigh and think about you again

Those days of monsoon rain,

Hope we’ll be together soon…

Together, so not to part in vain,

Together so never leave again...

Together so never be shy,

Shy off each other's love

Shy off what we deserve, 

Never let go another try, let's soar our dreams high

I'm sure we could fly... I'm sure we could fly...


AJ Baswan...

Monday, 16 May 2016

Lantern of heart

Lantern of heart
Shifu: If you only do what you can do, you'll never be better than what you are.
Po: But I like who I am!
Shifu: You don't even know who you are*
*Excerpt from Kung Fu Panda 3

That's the irony of life isn't it, as Shifu rightly pointed out "you don't even know who you are" our understanding is so limited by our intellect. Just a couple of days ago my two years old daughter said she was afraid. I was surprised to know how does she understand what being afraid is like? I know she is really dread of cats (She calls them Manu "Cat in Punjabi") and makes most scared face accompanied with perfect voice and tonality (I am sure her drama teacher will be very happy with her inborn talents) Then I recalled, human brain is wired for fear!  We have senses and mechanise that is hard wired to protect us from danger. one of them is called RAS (Reticular Activity System) the part of our brain that triggers agility in our muscles against foreseen danger.

As humans, we are gifted with an extra ordinary source of power, the conscious mind, which in poetic language is referred as "our heart"  or "guts" or "hunch". In reality, it is nothing but the areas of our brain that performs recording and play back of events and experiences we gather throughout life. Which in turn, becomes our opinions and values. But this human mind with all its peripherals could prove to be a bane or boon, depending upon what use you put it to.

Growing up I was so scared of dark, it was because of my brother's scary pranks I was terrified of the dark, only after few years I realised it was nothing but my perceived illusion. A notion of my experiences which led me to my belief about dark, how true...such is life! We keep scaring ourselves, living in fear due to figment of our imagination, due to the false meaning that we keep attaching about something we don't even know if it exists. I bet if you look at the root cause of the any issue, anxiety, fear or negative emotion it would be because of the false meaning that you have attached.

So next time you face any fear ask yourself this question "Is this real or just some vague imagination" then let your heart (or brain) guide you like a lantern in the dark... Go forth and conquer!!

Faith means living with uncertainty feeling your way through life letting your heart guide you like a lantern in the dark - Dan Mailman