Santhosh's Blog (2009-2018)

Greetings, one and all! We may be reaching the end of January, but here's still taking the opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year! Here's hoping you have a wonderful year ahead, with a lot of happiness, prosperity and good health! It is indeed yet another clean slate to start all over again, regardless of how we fared during the previous year. Whenever we approach the end of the year, I always used to feel very gloomy about it - and this dates back to my teenage years! While every person of my age group was out there in a festive and happy mood, I was mostly deeply sad and sort of pessimistic about the year that went by. Yeah, I was kind of a pointless philosopher even during my teenage years, as weird as it may sound. *rolls his eyes* And that mindset stuck in my head ever since for all these years... ...until this year, thankfully! Despite 2016 having been a pretty awful year for me in many ways, I made the conscious decision of keeping myself calm and genuinely...

So here I am... listening to the soundtrack of Luke Cage (Season 1), looking at the calendar, and telling myself: "Wow... half of October is done already? That leaves me with two and a half months before 2016 ends." I sigh, give myself some really quick pep talk in my head for 5-10 seconds, and carry on with what I was wanting to work on on the good ol' reliable laptop. I get this feeling that 2016 has not been a really good year for a lot of people... and I really hope that you, the one reading this post, do not fall under this category of people. If so, I'm really happy for you, and I really hope the year ends in a similar manner for you. But this is for those who have also had a difficult year, and who feel like they haven't done as well as they would have wanted to. Here's the good news: it's still not all that bad! Enjoy the read :-) (Click on Continue Reading or Read More, to proceed to the full post)

Hello one and all! Hope you all had a great start to 2016, as we are already at the halfway mark of February! And for those who have not had an easy start to the year (like me), here's an awesome meme that might just cheer you up: The big news to begin this post with, is that I'm back in Geneva since last month. Now for those who have read my previous Lifeblog posts (and I thank you for that!), you may be wondering: "Wait, how is he back in Geneva? Didn't he mention he was really happy in Bangalore?" And almost all the Indian family friends who are meeting me after a long time are asking me: "So you didn't like it in Bangalore?" (which is, of course, a normal assumption to make, for most cases) So, for the record, to settle it for once and for all: NO, there was nothing wrong with Bangalore, or my life there - and I was indeed VERY happy there! I still stand by all the statements I had made, about "loving my lifestyle in Bangalore...

Hello Readers! Hope you guys are doing good. To begin this post on a "happy note", I just realized a while ago that I recently completed 5 months here in Bengaluru! As you may have realized through my last Lifeblog posts, the last few months have been nothing less than dramatic, crazy, or eventful. But then again, call me old-fashioned, but I still look at the many positives which came out of them, despite the "negatives" having outnumbered the "positives". But my life goal of "sustaining Happiness" (which happens to be the meaning of my name, something I keep obsessing in almost every blog post these days) is something that keeps me motivated, and I will obviously hope to have a happier set of "Bangalore Days" in the coming months! This blog post will be divided in 3 parts: Smiles, Distance, and key Takeaways from the previous two parts. (Click on READ MORE to continue reading)

Hello Readers! So here I am... publishing this blog post on 13th July 2015, with tons of pride. I am two days away from completing two months in this "loveable chaos" called Bengaluru. I remember using this analogy many years back, when I had first started this blog in 2009: "Life is a rollercoaster ride" . To be honest, I cannot think of any other analogy even now. My two months here have been nothing but an "emotional rollercoaster". Every single day has been a learning curve for me. It was very difficult, initially. But currently, I am honestly loving the vibes (good and bad) I am getting all around me! Coming from a tiny and quite boring city called Geneva, moving to the "larger-than-life" Bangalore was never going to be easy... but I am pleasantly surprised at the unexpected changes I have been going through. In Geneva, I was very lazy, not very driven, and not too outgoing. Now in Bangalore. I am one of the first ones to wake up...

Dear Readers, Hope you all are doing fantastic. And I hope 2014 was a good year for all of you. For those who had a tough year, here's conveying my warmth to you, as the "sun has set", and now it is about "to rise again". Thus, I hope this new "sunrise", the arrival of 2015, will bring you happiness, peace and prosperity! As for me, well, 2014 has been a mixed bag. There has been a lot of great things coming my way, but I am still fighting some personal battles. 2015 looks massive, since I would have finished with my studies by then, and well, I will be moving on to the next chapter. Still a lot of uncertainty as to what I will be doing exactly, but will take things as they come. May 2015 be a great year for all of us! Let us all enjoy the new adventures that may be in store for us. Happy New Year to you all! Regarding my blog... well, ahem, this was most certainly my worst year, in terms of posting articles on my blog. Only one blog po...

Hello Readers! It has been two whole months I had not seen myself logging in to my own blog... I hope you all are keeping well! This post is one more to the collection of "Lifeblog" posts, that I have on this site. The title? Well, I guess it's one that "says it all". You don't know where Life is taking you, so the "Destination" is unclear... There is no real "End" or "finality" to the events that keep happening... And there is a lot of uncertainty. Photo by Santhosh Muraleedharan Let me be fair to myself: I have evolved very positively as a person in many ways. I do realize that, yes. In other words, my reactions to the various events and happenings that have surrounded me have been quite good, in my own assessment. This differences can be noticed in the way I have written my Lifeblog posts in the past few years. But still, throughout this entire journey called "Life", I have this tendency to ofte...

Hello to all! This is going to be a relatively short post, about the forthcoming posts to be uploaded on this blog. First and foremost, here's hoping that you, my readers, are keeping well and that you have had a good 2013. To those who usually like reading the posts I publish on the various topics I cover in my blog, here's good news: this month there will (hopefully) be 4  posts published on my blog. To know what, and on which topics I will be writing about, keep reading!

“The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.”  -  Molière "The true measure of a man is not how he behaves in moments of comfort and convenience but how he stands at times of controversy and challenges." - Martin Luther King Jr. Sailing through this journey called 'Life'... © Santhosh Muraleedharan Hi Readers, Hope you are all doing well. Have been going through very difficult times lately, so this post is going to be a "Note To Self" type of post, where I'm reminding myself of how to keep myself going with such strong views. This blog post will be about the demoralizing, demotivating and moreover, the saddening power of Obstacles in Life. It is going to be formulated very generally, and using my own personal views and experiences regarding this topic. As opposed to what you may initially assume about the nature of this post, it is not to give out a pessimistic description of them. But on the contrary to insist on ...

Salutation Readers :) So for those who have been following my "Lifeblog's" (a term which I actually invented very spontaneously four years ago, and which I will stick to even now), you may have known that I have been trying to find the right type of studies for me, for the past two or three years. First I started out doing the first year of my undergraduate studies by opting for the Mathematics course. The outcome of it? It ended up being a very wrong choice, as the matter was very difficult to grasp for me, and the rate at which the workload came just kept increasing. The class sizes were small (not surprising, as not many people opted for this course, since it's known for its toughness), but on the whole I couldn't keep up with it as the matter was dry and moreover difficult. Within the same university system, I then ventured into International Relations, with the hope that things will be better. I met amazing people, made great friends (whom I'm ...

The large Christmas tree at Wafi Mall, Dubai Before going over the general happenings in my life, I would like to wish all readers of this blog a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope 2013 will be a brilliant year for all of us... may God bless us all! And as for me, well I have it will be by far a better year for me, as 2012 was a very extreme one. An extreme one, because I came across many failures and some success in this same year.  One of the biggest failures for me was actually failing in University of Geneva. All that said and done, October onwards I started moving on towards a whole new world. I joined a private university, where the atmosphere was totally different. The small classes, where you know all your peers and colleagues. The teacher-student relationship, which is actually there. And moreover, personally speaking, at last a taste of success, as I am finally faring well in my studies! I have managed to score consistently well so far, proba...

Hello readers :) After what seems to be like a very long time, I'm finally writing a "Lifeblog" post. For those who don't remember what that's all about, it's infact probably the only time, where my main focus aren't movies, cricket, music, or anything of the sort. It's not about the glittery world of entertainment or sports in this part of my blog. It's infact about the updates in my life (obviously without dwelling into the private details). So here goes, Lifeblog of June-July 2012. The title of this post is actually a line of one of my most favorite songs... called "Yeh Zindagi Bhi", (from the movie 'Luck By Chance'), and that line means something like "I want to reach out for those stars out there... I want them, all of them!" (Sorry if my translation isn't perfect. My Hindi is not that great, so feel free to correct me!) This line (or atleast my interpretation of it!) somewhat reflects my minds...

The Avengers... now this is a movie, which a huge majority of fans are looking forward to. It's entirely justified. And I'm putting the emphasis on the word "entirely". You take five superhero movies. Different stories, coming from different eras, different contexts, or different places of the universe even! But they all come together in ONE MEGA-SEQUEL. And that's Avengers for you. Most of my friends from my friends-circle over here in Geneva, actually know how excited I am for this flick. And it's funny and ironical, because I never knew that I would turn out to be such a big fan of this Marvel Cinematic Universe. (As it is called by the makers) It all goes back to Iron Man, back in 2008. Initially when the name itself came out, knowing nothing about it, I used to make fun of it: "A superhero with powers of being made out of Iron? What a joke" Well, I then saw the movie, and was totally impressed. Robert Downey Jr. was a-ma-zing in this r...

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON WORDPRESS ON 25TH DECEMBER 2011  http://santhoshgeneva.wordpress.com/2011/12/25/few-thoughts-here-and-there/ (NOTE: This blogpost has been written during a span of 1-2 weeks.) Hello readers! :) So we are slowly approaching the end of 2011. Yet another year that passes by so quickly. Time flies, and I realize I keep repeating it, in my various blogposts :roll: So here are a few random thoughts, dedicated in the name of December 2011. A month, that marks the end of the year 2011, but still is an important part of the year nevertheless. Enjoy the read, friends! :) "All that glitters is not gold." Right now, I am writing this paragraph of the blogpost, in an auditorium, during a certain class of my University course. (Which for obvious reasons, I am not going to name :-P ) No, it's not because I am lazy. It's not because I'm a bad student. Nor is it because I'm trying to rebel or something, against this sir. Mainly, it...

Salutations, readers! First and foremost, here's wishing a very happy and prosperous Onam to all those who celebrate it. (And I just CANNOT wait to feast and savour on the Onam Sadhya for lunch. Hehehe!) The following blogpost will mainly be a general view of the big events happening in my life. (obviously, without going into the intricate details) Will also write separate blogposts on Cricket, Hindi music and Bollywood, separately. So here goes, yet another blogpost entitled Lifeblog. With an added bonus in the end, for those interested. ^_^ Lifeblog August was a very memorable month, in every way of the word. I did an internship in this e-commerce company called CoralHub, and the atmosphere was absolutely brilliant, and so informal (a huge change, from the super-formal Swiss atmosphere). And well, the team was composed of very friendly and straightforward people, and I got to make very good friends there. Quite a surprising thing, that was, since I always tho...