If you could pick any fictional animal to be your lifelong companion (like a Pokémon or fantasy pet), what would it be?
No one, my cat, Pixie, is enough to make me crazy. She wants constant attention and is like my baby girl, wanting cuddling and love every other minute. She is more demanding than my 4-year-old son. But she is a cute, gentle, lovely cat, and we are happy and fortunate to have her. We don’t need any other pet, real or fictional.
She didn’t like this question 😊
Would you trade your real pet for a Pokémon — or is the chaos part of the charm?
If you had to switch lives with a fictional character for a week, who would you choose?
Sorry to disappoint. I don’t want to switch my beautiful, satisfying life with anyone, forgot about a week, not even for a day. I am very happy with what I have and how my life is going.
I always thank God for the lovely life I have, the people around me, a beautiful family that loves me unconditionally, an amazing, non-demanding wife, an easygoing kid, a stable job and career, and whatnot. Every day when I wake up, I admire the new day, to be able to see it, feel it, and walk through it.
I feel blessed to be able to do what I want without anyone pressuring me not to, whether it’s reading books, playing Pickleball, hiking, or biking. I have a supportive wife who loves joining me on adventures; we travel together and sometimes solo as well. My next trip is a boys’ trip to trek a 14er in Colorado. I am pretty excited for it.
Why would I switch this blessed life with a fictional character?
Have you ever liked a villain more than the hero? Who and why?
Who is the hero and who is the villain? It all depends on the perspective. Everyone has traits of both; sometimes the hero is dominant, and sometimes the villain.
I read it somewhere and really liked the analogy. According to Hindu scriptures, there are four yugas(ages): Satyuga, Tretayuga, Dwaparyuga, and Kaliyuga (the current yuga). If we consider the hero as God and the villain as a demon, in Satyuga, the hero used to live in heaven and the villain under the ground; then came Tretayuga, where both started living on the earth but poles apart; Dvapara yuga brought them even closer, and they started living in the same city; and finally in Kaliyuga, they came together and live in a human body. So we are both hero and villain.
A villain has enough reasons to do what he does, and he believes in it. Maybe it’s wrong for society, but not for him. For instance, Pan Singh Tomar, who was a dacoit, was wanted by the government. If you read his story, you’ll learn he was an ex-military officer and national-level athlete who also represented India at the Asian Games before becoming a rebel. His reasoning was justified; he had to take the law into his own hands when our system turned its back on him. His land dispute got so ugly that he had no choice but to handle it himself.
Who is the villain in this case: Pan Singh, the system, or the people who were troubling his family for a piece of land?
Let’s talk about the great Hindu epic Mahabharata. Duryodhana, portrayed as the ultimate villain, wasn’t that bad at all. In fact, the Pandavas, known for their good deeds, were equally corrupt. Yudhishtir, the eldest of the Pandavas, was a gambler who lost his property, servants, brothers, and even his wife, Draupadi, in gambling. Who gambles away his wife? What kind of hero was he?
On the other hand, Duryodhana had every reason to hate the Pandavas: first, they were not the legitimate children of Pandu, the deceased elder brother of Dritarashtra, Duryodhana’s father and current king. Even if they were, the kingdom should have passed to the current king’s son, as per the traditions of that time (even today, that’s how it is, which is called nepotism).
Pandavas spent their childhood in the forests and ashrams, and then one day they appeared in the kingdom, talking about their share. Who will entertain that? Just think of your cousin brothers who you just heard about coming to your door one day and asking for a share of your property.
The Pandavas were so good that they married a single woman, as if women were scarce at the time. How right was that? I totally agree; kingship should be based on merit, and the Pandavas were way ahead of the Kauravas in that regard. But where in the world does this happen? Nepotism is rooted in human culture; a father passes down his wealth and property to his son or daughter, whether he is worthy of it or not.
I don’t endorse Duryodhana’s or Pan Singh’s actions, but I understand why they did what they did. There is no hero or villain; it’s just us reacting to the situation. Someone else’s perspective decides whether we’re a hero or a villain, but everyone is a hero to themselves.
If Duryodhana had won, would history have called him a hero? What does that say about how we write stories?
I couldn’t finish Stephen King’s IT and had to return it to the library because I’d had it for quite some time. The book was a 1,000+-page saga; though interesting, I lost patience around page 250.
If you don’t like reading and don’t know anything about this book, it’s one of King’s finest works, and there are 2-part movie adaptations. If you haven’t watched it and love the horror genre, watch it. You won’t regret it.
Other than this, I mostly read books ranging from 200 to 300 pages, not by choice, but the kind of books I read are mostly of this length.
I’m currently reading another King classic, “The Mist,” and it’s very engaging. Another book I am reading in parallel is “Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty”.
Are you a “finish every book you start” person, or do you give yourself permission to quit?
What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you?
My best advice to someone younger than me is to get out of a job mindset and become a risk-taker. Most of us are complacent and want an easy life where we go to the office, work defined hours, come home, and get paid. Instead of helping someone else make his dreams come true, we should work on our own dreams by building something of our own that can provide financial stability and a legacy for future generations.
Achieving this is tougher than it sounds, but it’s worth a try. If we don’t even try to build something of our own and depend on someone else for our paycheck, that paycheck can vanish anytime our company stops loving us.
Especially these days, with AI advancing, people are losing jobs here and there, and they have no backup plan. Not everyone can have that entrepreneurial mindset, but those who even consider it should try.
The biggest risk is not taking any risk – Mark Zuckerberg
If you are still in that boat of confusion and uncertainty, don’t think; commit to your dream. Even if you don’t achieve your goal, at least you won’t have the regret of not doing anything. Take any success story: successful people didn’t succeed overnight or in a single shot; they failed, got up, changed their strategy, tried again, learned, and through constant correction finally achieved what many couldn’t.
Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. – H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Success requires one key ingredient, and though it’s challenging, it’s essential: consistency. You might not have the right skill, the motivation, or the results, but doing the activity consistently can make your dreams possible.
I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. – Bruce Lee
What’s one habit you’ve stayed consistent with, and how has it changed your life?
