13 years and counting!

Dear reader(s),

I began writing on something or the other on this platform in 2008. 

As you might see from the archived posts on this blog, what began then was just sporadic jotting. 

And while I might not have written anything too elaborate or exhaustive here, I have always tried to use this medium to just keep writing about anything that is current or appealing enough for me.

Most of my posts have been about cricket and sometimes, about the current socio-political affairs of India. The idea is to just ensure that I stay in touch with the habit of putting my thoughts on the canvas of this blog, every now and then. 

In 2008, when I started off on this journey, I would write a few posts here, and a few there, every few months. That was also fine but I wanted to make this blog a habit. Well, not exactly a particularly taxing or strenuous habit (like a daily or even a weekly blog) but at least once a month. 

So April 2009 onwards, I decided to ensure that I would write about something here at least on a monthly basis.

And here we are today, May 2021. 12 full years of at least one blog post a month. That's quite literally an entire schooling (span) in itself. 

A big thank you to everyone who has been following me, and to every reader who has enjoyed the posts and shared their feedback over email. (Of course, I have still not enabled the Comments section but I would like to keep it that way, at least for now, but I always welcome all your emails)

Here's to more such wonderful milestones in future too!

Take care :)

God and the Devil

To my family (my parents, my in-laws, brother's family, in-laws' family), and of course, to Priyanka and Pranav Dhaundiyal :

The entire credit for this post goes to my son, Pranav - who wants me to write about God and The Devil.

I have often wondered, what defines a good human being.
We keep listening, reading, learning about becoming good, doing good, etc.
But what exactly does all this mean?

What constitutes the definition of a good person when we have both God and Devil, all within us?


There have been so many occasions when I have been rude to my family members. There have been so many occasions when I have hurt others.

There have been times when I have felt, appreciated, and given love. There have also been times when I have been happy about my conduct my heart, and my belief system.

Yes, quite simply, a good person is someone who, while conquering his inner demons, devils and weaknesses, also champions every effort channelizing on his positive, selfless, love-filled side.

True, life is full of challenges and temptations presented by the devils.
However, opportunities to be selfless and loving, abound aplenty too.

It is up to us to make the decision.
It is up to us to choose.
Every moment we spend, every decision we take, every action we make: let's ask ourselves:
In doing or not doing anything, are we siding with our inner God or our inner Devil?
If we can decide and act in consonance with this question as our guiding principle, I am sure, eventually, we would be happy with the way we led our lives :)

And no reason to worry about making this a tall order. Let's just climb one step at a time.
One day at a time, one act at a time, one decision at a time.


Hopefully, every such effort will be an exercise in making us a better person, a closer-to-God-than-to-Devil person every single day!

It will be a loooong and tiring journey of questioning ourselves everyday, but surely, this is one query which will be worth all the effort!

It is our life, and therefore, our own responsibility to do all we can, to make our inner God stronger every day, and vanquish any vestiges of anything negative or devilish from within.