Nasir Zaidi

You are your own brand ambassador. What you say defines your personality. What others think about you depends to a large extent on how you conduct yourself with them. It is very easy to form an opinion. That’s one thing that not only all of us love doing but we are damn good at it. In no time at all we are ready to crucify a person. That’s why it is more important to think twice before speaking. If you think thrice, then you narrow down the odds even further, of people forming an opinion. Though don’t be under the impression that if you are silent you are safe. Silence is sometimes perceived as dumbness. In the corporate world, especially. If you are quiet in a meeting or a discussion, then it is considered that you don’t have anything of value to add. So, people talk, even if they have nothing of value to add. Paradoxical situation – but that’s the way life is. Coming back to you are what you say , I believe we should never drop our guard while interacting with people becau...

We all have our list of top 10s. Top10 movies, top 10 books, top 10 actors, top 10 places, top 10 authors, etc, etc. In this blog I will list down my top 10 WORST ACTORS of Bollywood. Please note that the list is extempore so I may have missed some more deserving candidates. Please feel free to share your own list. And if by chance any of the names mentioned here is one of the favourites of any of the readers then my sincere apologies to them. 1.    Suniel Shetty: The guy is amazing. Except acting, he can do anything. See his acting prowess in films like Bhai, Rakshak. Watch him dance to the tune of Sundara Sundara and Hello, hello bol kar.  He takes the cake and the bakery too.   2.   Deepak Parashar: Wow! In front of this guy Suniel Shetty is a master. DP is a pain in all the places. To say that he can’t act for nuts will be an insult to nuts. And I don’t wish to insult anybody or anything.  3.   Anil Dhawan: He has ac...

While reading a book* I came across this line: What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things The author painstakingly states that we may want the whole world in our grasp but we may end up catching nothing in our fist. It isn’t necessary that what you want you will get…in fact it may never happen.  I agree with the line but not with the writer’s assessment about it. My argument is that: We may want a 3BHK apartment but instead we may get a penthouse. We may want to become a millionaire but instead we become a billionaire. We may want to become an officer at the time of getting the job but instead we end up becoming a CEO. The writer has only echoed Nida Fazli’s sentiments Kabhi kisi ko muqammal jahan nahi milta Kahin zamee toh kahin aasman nahi milta  I ask ‘Kyuun nahi? Why not?’ We limit our own self. We draw a line and stay behind it. We dream but are afraid so we stop dreaming. We become content with what we have. Contentme...

I am the masterpiece of my Creator.   He is the master and I am the piece. I stand on the periphery of darkness. A halo of light envelops me. Illumination flickers in the darkened corners of my mind. It’s time to bow down in gratitude. My heart aches with expectation. And expectation aches with fulfillment. The circumference of desire cannot be calculated. The soul flies into the limitless sky. I run into my own arms. But I meet with emptiness. That emptiness is an unwritten poem.       -NZ 26.11.2019 BN: 200 

  The ungainly evening disrupts my poise; The horizon dips in a glimmer of yellowness. An orb, indistinct, fragmentary, shatters And the sky explodes into a million pieces.   The cawing rooks and the disturbed onlookers Rattle the atmosphere to an extent that The setting sun assumes a vicious look Of a witch, whose face is shrinking, shrivelling;   What should have been a smooth transition, The evening dissolving into night, Instead turns out to be a murderous assault;  And in the ensuing mayhem, I lose my bearing. -NZ 25.11.2019 BN: 199    

Moonbeams dance likes pixies in a Shakespearean garden. Thoughts float like a friendly spirit wooing another friendly spirit. Night has fallen and yet looks dignified. But if man falls, then the situation is different?   Life shouldn’t be led as an afterthought. The moon blushes as countless stars glitter in the dark sky. Sensations cease when desires freeze. Failure is a myth that continues to influence us. Why is it taboo to know who we are? Alan Watts in the preface to his book ‘The Book’ writes ‘We are in urgent need of a sense of our own existence which is in accord with the physical facts and which overcomes our feeling of alienation from the universe.’   We learn languages, we study different subjects, we explore and imbibe and absorb but we hardly get to know who we are. Someone asked Buddha: ‘I want happiness.’ Buddha in his infinite wisdom replied, ‘Remove ‘I’ because it is ego, remove ‘want’ because it is desire, and you will be left with happines...

1.        Relaxing 2.        Imagining 3.        Reading 4.        Meditating 5.        Watching a movie 6.        Dining out 7.        Being with the family 8.        Long drives 9.        Playing with kids 10.     Connecting with friends 11.     Listening to the spouse 12.     Doing household chores 13.     Switching off from office 14.     Dreaming 15.     Doing nothing 16.     Taking stock of the situation 17.     Building relationships 18.     Lolling in bed 19.     The present 20.     Spoiling yourself 21. ...

I am always curious to know what the other person is reading. And I make it a point to read that book if I have not already read it. What fascinates me the most is what the great minds have read and I spend a lot of time in researching that. I have a list of all the books read by Ernest Hemingway, Steve Jobs and Acharya ‘Osho’ Rajneesh. Recently I came across the entire list of books read by Mahatma Gandhi. He seemed to have read almost everything written by Count Leo Tolstoy and Sir Edwin Arnold. But he had read only one play of Shakespeare which was Richard the Third . Mostly his reading was focused on religion, politics and history. But while going through the names of the books read by him, I found many unusual titles; some I had never heard before and some struck me as strange that the Mahatma would have read them. Hereunder are the 10 most unusual books that the greatest Indian to have ever lived has read: 1.     Equity by Snell 2.     India...

1.   The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran : An ode to spirituality; Gibran’s best work. 2.   Ulysses by James Joyce : Rated as the book of the twentieth century. Joyce’s masterpiece has made scholars nod their head in sheer disbelief. A work of a genius. Difficult, and at times, impossible to read, there are certain passages that surpass anything else that has been written in any form of world literature.   3.   The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand : Howard Roark remains to my mind one of the best, if not the best, fictional character ever created. Brilliant! A classic philosophical novel.    4.   From Sex to Super-consciousness by Osho : Acharya Rajneesh for all his quirkiness is no doubt one of the most well-read spiritual teachers of all time. Of all the Osho literature that I have read this book is the best because Osho has dealt with the subject of sex in a very unique way. Sex leads to the awakening of the mind which in turn leads to super-...