DECODING

LESSONS OF LIFE THROUGH

LUDO

DECODING

LESSONS OF LIFE THROUGH

LUDO MANISHA KOUSHIK

PETALS PUBLISHERS & DISTRIBUTORS KIDWAI NAGAR MARKET, LUDHIANA – 141008 E-mail: [email protected] www.petalspublishers.com © MANISHA KOUSHIK All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this book. First Edition: November 2020 DECODING LESSONS OF LIFE THROUGH LUDO

Dedicated to All the people who believe in uplifting themselves and those around them

CONTENTS Acknowledgement...........................................................8 Preface...........................................................................11 Introduction..................................................................17 1. No Cheating.............................................................21 2. My Games My Rules................................................25 3. Chaska laga kya?......................................................32 4. Stop being Judgemental.........................................43 5. Pressure...................................................................57 6. How we change?.....................................................66 7. Life is a Teacher.......................................................78

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing this part of the book is always fun because it is always read in the beginning but usually written once you complete writing the book. It feels like writing a thankyou speech but then it is truly important for me to thank the most deserving people who encouraged me to take this initiative and bring together my thoughts in the shape of this book. I would first of all like to thank Maa Durga for blessing me with a life on this earth and further making me capable of living every moment of it beautifully. Someone who deserves a big thankyou from the bottom of my heart is my father, my mentor and my strongest wall of support – Dr Prem Kumar Sharma who is a renowned Astrologer and has been writing for Hindustan Times for more than two decades now. He has always motivated me to take up things I strongly feel about. Words are not enough to describe how his selfless love, blessings and support have made me accomplish my dreams. I would then like to thank my better half, my soul mate Vinay who volunteered to read the first draft of this book and encouraged me to put this effort through publishing. I owe a special thanks to our son Nishchay who has been ever ready to play Ludo King on his ipad. Losing

to him in the game has been a delight to see his priceless expressions as he sent my counters back home. I would like to thank both my moms for actively participating in playing the game as well as discussing these important life lessons with me that have helped me widen my vision in life. Thanks to my all-time cheerleaders – my brother Yadvinder and sister in law Shruti who sprinkled the positivity that the book is shaping up well. Special thanks to my friend Meenakshi Sharma who though being a hard core technical person working with a reputed MNC, very warmly volunteered to contribute the lovely art work in this book which made the text just too relatable. My team at JMD especially Pooja, Rita, Akanksha & Dola deserve an applaud for ensuring that I derive time to complete this book in my hectic schedule. Thanks to everyone who follows me online. It is because of every like, share and comment that I receive on my thoughts which pumps in the confidence to put my thoughts in to writing. Lastly, I offer my sincere thanks to all the readers of this book. It is because of you that I have had the opportunity to bring forth my experiences in life and relate it to this simple game of Ludo. I hope you enjoy my humble attempt to see life with a clear lens.

PREFACE “Motivation” – we all keep looking for it. Whether it comes from within or a situation or from someone – we look forward to it at every moment. Especially in the times when we are so brittle – someone’s words of wisdom injects such positivity in us that we are good to proceed. Motivation certainly is a process to achieve a goaloriented life. To get up and fetch a glass of water when one is thirsty is the motivation to quench one’s thirst. Our behaviour, our thoughts, our actions and reactions are a result of our own motivation quotient as well as what we can use to uplift those around us. Successfully motivating others is a skill that can only be mastered once we stay motivated ourselves. Whatever the situation may be – the thoughts in your mind yields the strength for you to encounter that situation.

I often wondered why is it that we look for e xternal motivation when we know that we are the ones whocreate our thoughts and thus live with them . But then after interacting with various people I realised, everyone has different frequencies to react in a situation. At times the situation has so much control on us that we tend to skip the fact that a calm mind can give us a solution for that particular problem. When someone outside that situation has heard us patiently and gives us an advice, it works e xtremely well – we call it motivation! One thing I observed working with people is that one doesn’t need motivational lectures or workshops to start with. Everything is within us and all we need is to have a moment with ourselves. But there is no harm in looking up to someone else to uplift you when you are not able to do that for yourself. Consider the e xample of the smartphone you carry. Each one of us has

a different phone based on our requirements, functionality

preferences,

affordability,

etc.

Even the costliest phone with the best battery life needs a charger to recharge its battery. Every phone comes with a charger; but suppose you forget your charger at home and the battery is draining. To prevent your phone from switching off – you start looking for a charger and thus ask help from people at your workspace. Some people may even make fun of you that your fancy phone’s battery conked off while there will be some who would be happy to lend their charger to you. All you have to look for are the people who can help you in the time of need because they are certainly going to uplift you and motivate you. Motivation doesn’t have a course syllabus. It doesn’t have levels for you to achieve. It is not quantifiable. Our dosage of motivation may always differ from the other. While some people

may require motivation in personal relationships, others may need it on the work front. While some may need motivation to lose weight; there might be others who need to understand the importance of eating on time. Thus, whatever the case maybe – we just need to hold ourselves and observe everything around us that can help us in making our life better. This book is all about my personal opinions on the L essons of life that intrigued me while playing the famous online game “Ludo King.” For those who do not know what Ludo King is ; it is an online version of our most played childhood board game “Ludo.” I was attracted to this game during the COVID-19 lockdown in the year 2020. Winning the game kept me confident while losing the game tempted me to win the ne xt game. It was while playing that a thought struck me. There

are so many lessons of life that this game teaches us. All we have to do is grasp and accept them. This book aims at taking you down the memory lane of how we played the game with our siblings, cousins, friends and family;while e xplaining theimportant lessons that we can learn from the game. If we can interpret them in the right way – we will be able to decode them and imbibe within ourselves to smoothen our journey as we progress further in life. I promise this would not be a book to instill ‘Gyaan’ (knowledge) about the purpose of your e xistence and how and what should you be doing in life. But a fun read about what we do in life besides knowing what should be done? Happy Reading!