c u on top - satyabrata dam

There’s a huge difference between failing and failing after trying your best. In this post I am going to talk about failing after trying your best. Those who fail without trying their best or not trying at all, they can look elsewhere for justification to fail. This post is not for them.   I believe that success under favorable circumstances isn’t a measure of life at all. But the success that comes after failing truly makes our character because through our failures we learn, we grow, we experience and we risk. I doubt if anyone has ever learnt to ride a bicycle without falling even once. Or to swim without almost drowning at least once. When we recall our lives we often remember our failures, those moments when everything worked against us, and we crashed, as well as our successes, especially those that came after it was felt that we wouldn’t succeed again. It is our endeavor to rise against the general belief of the society in our inabilities that we prove ourselves. Success a...

My blog is over a decade old and it has followers from around the globe. During this period I have received many messages from complete strangers, mostly expressing gratitude for the  happiness they find within my prose. Some also vehemently critical opposing my views. And some falling in love with the writer and perhaps not so much with his words. My articles have also been published both online and in print in numerous journals, magazines, newspapers, travel columns around the world. And these too have reached out to thousands of readers, nearly all unknown to me. And they too have written to me. I enjoy reading them all but I enjoy the most when someone asks me a question and not merely words of praise or disappointment. My writing topics pretty much encompass all spheres of life including its failings and also its risings. Therefore I guess I have a large spectrum of readership. From young to old and everything in between. The youngest message I have ever received was from an...

Several years ago I was addressing a gathering of happy people in Iceland. Going by the country-wise global happiness index, Iceland is a constant among the top five happiest nations on planet pretty much since this index was conceptualized. Though the position of happy nations in the list changes from one year to another, you will always find Iceland, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden among the top ten and Iceland more than any nation has been featured in the top or second position. So I had gathered that the gathering comprised of happy people who had cracked the happiness code.   I continued with my usual nonchalant twopence worth talk full of laughter and utter nonsense yet the crowd roared and appreciated and paid me handsomely. During the Q&A a dainty girl (Icelandic women are generally pretty) with daunting dentures stood up and asked: Where is happiness? Where do we find it?   I was silenced for a minute being asked this question from a race that must have already fo...

Let’s name my passport Jane, the current edition being number 14. As a minor I had held 2 passports (India issues 5 year duration passport to minors and 10 year to adults) and in adulthood 12 more. Now if you do the maths it should strike you strange because I am barely 56. As you guessed correctly none of my passports ever survived the duration of 5 or ten years since the pages got exhausted well within less than half that duration requiring me to apply for a fresh one.  As my global gallivanting continued so did my passport pages got stamped and handled by immigration and customs authorities all over the world. Not to mention the odd random police or military checks here and there especially in fair skinned world where my brown skin is often subject to suspicion. I have been presumed on several occasions as man of dubious occupation and even a homeless middle-east refugee. So my passport, all the Jane’s down the years have got used to traveling, being handled and opened, disrobed...

  Earlier this year, when the world was still sane and normal, over a random cup of tea, I had admitted to a Belgian girl that I chanced upon and held a brief moment of random conversation that to my knowledge I have so far been to 190 countries officially and 191 technically thereby leaving only 2 countries out of my influence. She had nearly choked and spluttered her tea and with bulging eyes had posed how on earth I had managed to do that. At that time, as I was in a bit of hurry, I had simply shrugged my shoulders and told her that it just happened and left her to ponder. The last thing I remember was that dreamy far out look in her blue eyes that told me that even if her human flesh body was there her soul was by now spinning around the world. I never thought of this conversation until today. And I quizzed myself how on earth did I manage this? Here’s the very brief summary of the revelation. If I elaborate any further then it would take the shape of a novel of at least a ha...