Life is like riding a bicycle….to have a balance you must keep on moving

I left my first job at a local NGO in Pokhara in 2008 to pursue my master’s degree in public health (MPH) in Institute of Medicine (IOM); Kathmandu. Had I remained satisfied to my bachelor’s degree; my job in a NGO and my carefree life at Pokhara; I would have never been at the place where I’m today. “A journey of thousand mile begins with a first step” and leaving a job in Pokhara and moving to Kathmandu for master’s degree was my first step in a mile-long journey of life. After completing my MPH I joined one of the most reputed INGO in the field of HIV in the role of program officer with my station in Dhangadi of Kailali district. This was one of the most remarkable milestones in my career. With in three years tenure in this organisation I moved from Dhangadi to Pokhara and then to Kathmandu. In three years of my professional career in this organisation I was amidst a super professional and high performing team constantly monitored and coached by supportive & care taking supervisors. There was nothing to complain despite some overpressure during some day of the week. After three years I decided to move to another organisation. Change is necessary for growth of individual and organisation. I think the desire for change at that time forced me to change this organisation. After this organisation I joined another renowned organisation working globally in the field of child rights and implementing global fund program in Nepal. During five years tenure I got everything a public health professional wants in his career. Delegation of important tasks to me by the supervisors; exposures in the national and international forums; trust on me by my colleagues and opportunity to take lead role in role out of some national level key activities sharpened my public health skills. I was fully satisfied in my role and giving my hundred percent. Despite having everything a public health professional wants sometimes I felt like something was missing. I don’t know why but the inner intuition in me was telling that after working more than ten years in the field on HIV and having so much experience it’s time to search for international job now. Though there was enough in my plate; I still had an appetite for international job. After one year of vigorous search I finally landed in an Australian organisation working in eight countries of Asia Pacific Region. It was like a dream come true for me. My first international job and staying and working outside the country for a long term for the first time. I was super excited. The first few months went very fine. I was with my wife and enjoying the extravagant and lavish life style in the fastly booming city of Asia. My employer is still processing for work visa and I may need to travel back and forth untill this is settled. And this sometimes force me to think “did I make right decision?’. Yes I have made right decision. Change was necessary and I did it. I sometimes relate this to the famous quote “Life is like riding a bicycle. To have a balance you have to keep up moving. If you stand in same place for long you are likely to fall.” Absolutely true…..I have moved for balance. So no regrets………..Standing still in same place for long takes you nowhere.

Movie Review "Jatrai Jatra"

There are very few movies which have taken Nepali movie standard to new height. To name some among these are "Jatra" and its squeal "Jatrai Jatra". The common feeling most audience have while watching most Nepali movie in hall is; very poor acting; unrealistic scenes; undigestible dialogues and poor comedy if there are any some comedy scenes. Most of the times while watching Nepali movie its very painful to sit patiently for around three hours and watch the movie till end. But the movie "Jatra" and its sequale "Jatrai Jatra" has changed the whole dynamics of Nepali movie. Unlike other nepali movies you dont feel disconnected to the movie scenes. Each and every scene in this movie relates to daily activity of every Nepalese citizens. You are not forced to laugh by undigestible forceful comedy scenes. The small comedy scenes are interwined and plotted to an interesting story line to which each and every audience feels connected. This is the most strong part of the movie Jatrai Jatra. Besides this the acting of three lead characters Phanindra; Munna and Yas is superb; realistic and down to earth. The lead actress Sampu (Barsha) and the child actor Iman had done full justice to their role. The new characters added in the sequale "Daya Hang Rai" and "Raja Ram Paudel" have also done damn super good job. The cinematography is superb specially in the last part of movie which shows the scene of Pokhara and Phewa lake. In some of the movie plots there are some unrealistic turns and sudden change in plots which is a bit weird. Otherwise the movie is flawless and fully entertaining.

Moving to New Place

After working for more than three years in a USAID funded project and almost five years in a Global Fund funded project in Nepal; I had made decision that its now time to move on and look for international job. Before making this decision I had tried for PhD desperately in many institutions but I must say luck didn’t favor me and I never got tempting offer for PhD. Though there were some offers for self-funded PhD I didn’t like the idea of going for self-funded PhD by leaving a good paying job back in home. After many unsuccessful attempts for PhD I consoled myself saying international jobs should be the next in pipeline for me. Then I started hunting for the international job. But it was not as easy as I had imagined.

Though there was no any specific preference for international job; I had always wished I could start from one of the Asian countries. Due to the family reason also it was very important for me to shift to any Asian country. After hundreds of applications and a few interviews I was finally offered a place  by a Australian organisation implementing Global Fund  regional grant in Asia Pacific region. I was so desperate for international job that I couldn’t make any comparisons or negotiate with the current or new organisation and made the instant decision. I was determined that I must move on and staying in same place for a long time will bring saturation and some frustration at some point in time. So without any second thought I made decision to move  for new responsibility in a new organisation.

A regional hub of Asia; a city of expats; a fastly booming economy; a city of angels; best destination for students looking for quality education in low price and many more. A city that has everything for everyone. I was super super excited to be living in the city for at least next two years. (Though the contract is for three years my plan is to live in the city for at least two years).

It has been just three months since I moved to new job. In the past three months I had been busy in adjusting myself to the hustling and bustling life of new city. The major things that I did in past three months besides the regular office work are; I moved to an apartment; tried learning a little bit of local language and visited a beach during long weekend. My office is processing work permit and looks like it takes some more days. Otherwise I’m enjoying and having a good time in new city.

Review of 2.0

I had fully enjoyed watcing the movie Robot. "Can Robots have feelings and emotions?" "What happens if such machines develop emotions and fall in love with human?" ........ These were the important points raised in the movie "Robot" and was worth watching. However the sequale of movie Robot; "2.0" is not as interesting and as worth watching as its previous movie Robot.

The movie 2.0 starring superstars Rajnikant and Akshay Kumar; has raised an issue of how too much use of mobile phones is impacting the overall ecosystem. In the movie Akshya Kumar plays the role of an Ornithologist who is disappointed with the fact that telecommunication companies increase their frequency much higher than that allowed to them by the law to survive the increasing competition between different service providers. This has killed many birds which in turn has affected the overall ecosystem. So to save birds government must follow stringent regulations and strict monitoring on the telecommunication service providers. This is the crux of the movies story and directors has added different animations, flavors and cooked up some small stories to support the main idea.

Although first half of the movie is very interesting; in the second half audience start getting bored and film looks little bit lucid. In the earlier movie Robot; the use of animations and technology was digestible but in this movie too much use of animations and technology makes the movie unrealistic and unpalatable. Its a mediocre movie with many areas of improvement and not meeting the expectations of audience who were desperately waiting for the sequale of movie Robot.

आज अचानक..................

आज अचानक दैनिकी साह्रै monotonus भएको अनुभव भयो। लेख्ने पढ्ने बानी त हराएर गएछ । कुनै एउटा समय थियो हरेक हप्ता नयाँ नयाँ पुस्तक पढेर सकाएको हुनै पर्थ्यो मलाई, हरेको दिन सुत्नु भन्दा अगाडि ब्लग मा केही न केही लेखेकै हुनुपर्थ्यो । आज ब्लग हेरेको त , ब्लग मा कुनै लेख नलेखेको पनि दुई बर्ष हुन लागिसकेछ । हैट समय जती सबै फेस्बूक  टुइटर्  र youtube ले खाएछ । सिर्जन्सिलता भन्ने चिज सबै मरेर गएछ । आजकाल ते केही कुरा लेख्न खोज्यो भने पनि हात नै सर्दैन, दिमाग मा केही आउन्दैन । कम्प्युटर को अत्यधिक प्रयोग, जे कुरा पनि गूगल मा खोज्ने बानी र कपि पेस्ट सिन्ड्रोम ले दिमाग त साह्रै बोधो बनाएछ । सधैं यस्तै भयो भने त खत्तम हुन्छ । अब जीवन सैली मा फेरी परिवर्तन गर्नु पर्ने बानी गर्नु पर्ने भो । दैनिकी लाई सिर्जन्सिल बनाउनुपर्छ । हरेक हप्ता नयाँ नयाँ पुस्तक हरु पढ्ने बानी बसाल्नु पर्छ अनी सधैं केही न केही लेखिरहनु पर्छ ।

Positive vs Negative

Every morning I try to get up, there are two forces acting on me. One force (Positive) tries to pull me out of bed and another force that asks me to continue cuddling in bed. Every morning, these two forces fight among themselves for me. The result is usually the positive force wins but sometimes the negative force wins and keeps me in bed in the time when i should have been in track. This negative force got victory over my positive force today and the result.......I was cuddling in bed in the time when I should have been sweating in track.....and regretting latter on.

I think its a regular life event. In each and every step of life there are two forces acting at the same time the positive and negative. If the positive force become stronger you won and if the negative force become stronger you loss. In my opinion all the successful people in the world have made their positive forces strong through regular practice or other different means where as in the unsuccessful people the negative force have become more stronger than the positive force.

To gain victory over the negative force one needs cultivating environment, continuous positive thought, good life habits etc............Gaining victory over the negative force is not any easy task. Though its difficult it is possible and once you gain victory over the negative force you will fell as if you are on the top of world.

Because I run..............

Few months ago when we were out of a very long, terrible and tough meeting Dr Neeta asked me "Sanjeev jee, how can you be so fresh and smiling at the end of such a tough meeting". I hadn't realised that I was looking fresh and was smiling even when my supervisors were shouting at me. After thinking for few minutes.......I realised that I had started running in the morning since last one month and the effects were already started to be seen.................I became excited.

Few weeks latter I was sitting adjacent to Dr Bisika in a meeting and she said me "Sanjeev jee, it seems that you are loosing weight these days. Is it right ?". I just replied "Oh really..." And didn't tell anything in front of her. I said with in myself......."It is because I run....."

Once I was going through some very very difficult times. Yeah....very very hard times.......there were questions related to my performance..........there were serious concerns from the donor that some of the activities that I should have accelerated were moving in a sluggish way. With in my own organization also there were some criticisms regarding performance of my unit. I was surrounded by stress, tensions, matrixes and deadlines.......I had allmost collpased. I was in immense stress and pressure. I had almost forgotten to laugh. Many health problems had started to appear in me and I was about to reach the stage of depression.........Despite all these problems I had never lost the hope and was looking for some positivity. I kept on working hard thinking that someday I could bring changes and could prove those people who were questioning on my performance as wrong. But I was looking for some therapy to keep me surviving on these stress, pressures and burden. And suddenly i found this therapy "Running early in the morning".

In the first few days it was very difficult.....but in few days I was able to manage it. I got up early in the morning.....put on my gears and started to run. I took the help of some blogs by morning runners and started going through some motivatinal videos on youtube. All these strategies helped me to continue running every morning. After running for few months, the winter started and I felt lazy. It was difficult for me to get out of bed early in the chilly morning. I was again back to the stage of lazzyness and again surrounded by the stress and burdens.

Since last one month, I'm again back on track. I have started running early in the morning. This gives me freshness on whole day in my work. All my stress, burdens and pressures are swept away from my body in the form of sweat.......I feel really really very fresh, agile and motivated at the end of half an hour morning run. These days morning run has become a part of daily life.....its no more a daily routine. As I dont have to remember to take breath, I dont have to remember to do morning run after getting up in the morning. This happens automatically................I'm looking forward to continue this morning run till my last breath.