WOMEN CAN’T HAVE IT ALL‼

Speaking broadly, I’m just too hardcore a feminist to enunciate my write-up with a title like this one. So quite obviously, the title can’t be a product of my thoughts but the nomenclature of the manufacturer of this thought would probably send an electric spark down to your nerves like it did too mine.

The CEO of PepsiCo India, Indra Nooyi notoriously voiced the above titled emotions while being awarded for her prodigious excellence in one of the ceremonies. At the Aspen Ideas Festival, Colorado when she took over the stage, there were business tycoons and men/women from the press alike in galore bracing themselves up to lend their ears to something worthwhile being stressed upon from the podium. India’s most successful woman entrepreneur, till then, was being viewed by flocks of women as a powerhouse, as the Harry Potter who had got all clandestine revealed about the success mantra, as Sherlock Holmes who had spied long at the mysteries behind being efficacious efficaciously, as Dan Brown who had cracked Da Vinci Code tediously, or simply put as a laborious businesswoman in-apprehensive of what her genetic coding (i.e. being a woman) says.

The boss, who is a mother of two, further extended her views, saying that she died with guilt over compromises she had to make to balance career and family life. With a stellar career, £7.3 million salary and a 34 year long marriage, statistics flatter enough to deceive her statements though. She insists that women can only pretend to have it all. She says that every day is a choice that in parallel to being a CEO, shall she be a mother today or a wife. Sometimes, during the day itself the decision has to be amended over again and again.

She had put light on how uncooperative her spouse had been, which fundamentally turned things sour as the onus lied on Indra solely. He complained every now and then of her work priorities. Sadly, he failed to understand that you can’t become a million dollar baby with a minimum wage work ethic. Sadly enough, in defiance to Indra Nooyi I would say that ‘no one has it all’ in reality. Ms. Nooyi, trust me, everyone just pretends to have it all. Right from the morning, every day is a choice between whether to stay in bed for a couple of minutes more and laze or to get up a decade of minutes earlier and grind. You just can’t have it all. It is the law of the land, you win some; you lose some.

Wrapping it all up, I would culminate by just hoping that all women get better better-halves over Mr. Raj (Indra’s husband), because settling down for lesser things in life can’t be an option for the ambitious lot of women.

Here’s to the misfits‼

This one’s for the crazy ones, for the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes and the ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them or disagree with them, glorify them or vilify them but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they’re the ones who change things. They push the human race forward. And while others may see in them the rebelliousness, I see the intellect in them coupled with the novelty. I believe that people who are crazy enough to think they can change things are the ones who do.
Someone aptly put it down, “If you set your dreams and goals ridiculously high and fail, then you’ll fail above everyone else's success”. Great men surpass great hindrances and hence, I needn't not dig deep down in the history to put the exemplaries on display. So, let's just adjust our focus on the present generation's stars. At the age of 15, Cristiano Ronaldo was diagnosed with a racing heart- a condition that might have forced him to give up playing football. At the age of 11, Lionel Messi was diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency. At the age of 18, Kaka fractured his spinal cord- a career threatening injury. And from 7 billion people, these are the “three” best soccer players in the world.
Furthermore, to whom now the cricketing world looks up to as the brashest player with a care in the world, once cared too much. At the age of 17, Virat Kohli (for Delhi) was playing his first Ranji season. In a crucial tie against Karnataka, the team was jaded and hopes of even saving the match forget winning, were dwindling. The batting stars were back in the pavilion and out came the young lad on a foggy morning with his lethal weapon in hands, tears in the eyes and father on the funeral pyre. The circumstance would’ve shattered any man on Earth into pieces lighting up in them feelings which would’ve later transformed themselves into tortures for life. But it was the valor in him that fuelled him to smoke what he was born to do by scoring a match saving 93 on the day. Ask him today, and he’ll answer “if it weren’t that knock under those circumstances, the selectors won’t have bothered (read: noticed) to pick me up for the U-19 world cup as a skipper” whose euphoria had opened the floodgates for the international arena for him.
Next we hop on to the man who made Personal Computers (PCs) an essence in our lives. He was so obsessed with PCs that he literally died of PC (Pancreatic Cancer). When Steve Jobs was first diagnosed with cancer which he survived later, the doctor had declared that at most he would make up to another 3 months. The doctor had advised Jobs to get over with all his pending works left undone, dates hung for the future, upcoming family gatherings and friends’ reunions for another yet last time. He smiled at the doctor broadly and replied gently, “All that I want to do in life can’t be finished in 3 months. Therefore, I believe that the Lord will help me survive more.” And the rest is history.
Walt Disney was eliminated from the preliminary rounds of a cartoon drawing competition as his teacher cited lack of creativity as the reason behind his send off. Miley Cyrus was told by her music teacher while giving auditions for the school choir that she sounded like a goat. And, today I don't know what to say about them. Should I say that they won in life because they believed too much in themselves or they won because they proved their teachers wrong? Yes, they didn't listen to their priest, their parents, teacher, sibling or friends or any random guy on TV elucidating to them how to do their shit. They just listened to their natural instinct or putting philosophically, only to the-soul-of-the-world.
It is the perennial, self-replenishing, undistortable belief in such men and women that makes the ordinary souls of ours too mainstream and too monotonous.  The problem of these ordinary souls is that they think. They think they’re too young, too old, too raw, too ripe, too modest, too inexperienced, too powerless, until they realize that they just think too much. After being hit upon by this realization, they too become extraordinary and in this befitted world, these misfits then look for other misfits. They lose the sanity of applauding the ordinary draining life drenched in alcohol and a paper roll with fire on one end and an idiot on the other; and choose to stay foolish enough to always get driven by the wings of an eagle swaying in the sky, scaling new heights. They’re the ones who can’t be taught “the applications of Earth’s magnetic field” on the board, from the book. They peep outside the window for catching the sight of a sunbeam resting on the ground and quickly relate it to the sundials, then the magnetic compasses and so forth working on the same principle.
So now, let’s all of us believe too. Let us believe too much that we willingly risk everything for a dream no one else can see but just you, and just me because dreams are there for a purpose. If they can come from the imagination, they can be created too. There is no limitation in dreaming and hence it is possible that no limitation exists in reality. 
Dreamers remind us that the wonderment we felt as kids is still alive and well in us. When time gets tough, and we start to lose hope, a dreamer will remind us of our place in the world, and our ability to overcome suffering. A dreamer uses failure to improve on his dreaming. Suffering is the stimulus to do better next time. No one can ever suppress a dreamer or force him/her to let it go. Let us believe too much that our 8 year old self becomes proud of us today, tomorrow and forever. Let us set our goals so big that we get uncomfortable telling small minded people and let's always remember that laughter is timeless, imagination has no age and dreams are forever.
And if you're still wondering that where you'll find that one misfit who can inspire you to a different level, then here's the hint: You're going to come across people in your life, who will motivate you, love you and change you; and that is a rare thing, but every once in a while you will come across someone/thing who will come and completely rob you from your sleep and those are the people/things who are just too beautiful to be put into words.