About Me — Aman Arora
Describing yourself is like biting your own teeth but I will try my best
About Me Stories
About Me — Aman Arora
It’s so difficult to get started writing about yourself, no? But when you find the flow, you can go on and on!
After reading a couple of About Me stories on this publication, I think I, too, should give it a shot and describe myself in my own way.
So, who is Aman Arora?
Well, I am a human being first of all before I am a man, a husband, a son, or an Indian, or a Government Servant.
I am a curious, spiritual yet fun-loving, ambivert person who loves reading, introspecting, writing. Music and Mountains are love.
I belong to a middle-class, moderate family living in Panipat, Haryana, India, famous for its three historic battles. I did my bachelors in technology with Computer Science discipline and then worked for Infosys, an IT company for about 2 years. I hated it!
I was very shy and reserved, and all the other adjectives you have for being an introvert, in my formative years. It’s only around the end of my college years that I gained some confidence and started approaching girls!
About my Partner/Kids/Family
I have a conservative family but I am a rebellious soul and I mostly do, after listening to them, what I feel is right for me.
I got married in 2019 with a beautiful partner that is more like a best friend to me than a typical ‘wife’. She is amazing. Her innocence and her smile is what blew my away at the first sight. And she is very honest, quite open-minded and a compassionate soul.
I was afraid that after marriage I will be bound with terms and conditions on whom I could talk to, whom I could meet but thankfully that didn’t happen. She is very understanding about that and have given me ample space to breathe.
Any cool experiences?
Many such experiences; I can’t remember at the top of my head.
Well, I have done river-rafting and bungee-jumping that was a life-changing experience for me. I taught English and Maths to under-privileged kids that was a life-altering experience for me. I have slept on the floor of a train, I have made friends with complete strangers on my journeys, I have slept completely naked on my rooftop, all these experiences were quite liberating and it made me who I am today.
What are my Medium goals?
I am on Medium for primarily two reasons- to write my hearts out & to connect with awesome fellow readers and writers who will help me on my writing journey and vice-versa. Well, I am not going to lie. If I earn from writing then it would be like icing on the cake.
Which topics do I like to write about on Medium?
I would not ever want to zone myself into writing some specific topics. I will write my mind. But what I love writing about most is Philosophy, Spirituality, Mental Health, Psychology, Meditation and Mindfulness; basically anything that makes us a better person or help us know ourselves better.
Place I have travelled to that resonated with me
I have not travelled abroad yet but in India I love quite a few places that most resonated with me, like:
Goa: I loved its vibe and carefree attitude.
Meghalaya: I loved how clean, pristine, unpolluted and unexploited it is apart from the fact that it is a female-dominated society.
Spiti: A trans-Himalayan desert that I loved for its pure, kind, and compassionate souls. And for the spiritual experience it offers.
What I love
The following are the things that I love doing in no particular order:
Sports
I love playing different sports. I started with Cricket then Table-Tennis and then Badminton, Lawn Tennis, Squash. I admit that I don’t know the right technique required for many of the sports or I might not be very good at it but still I play because it makes me happy.
Photography
I used to be so against clicking pictures once upon a time. My thought process was that capturing pictures of beautiful sunsets and picturesque mountains and beaches runs against my philosophy of living-in-the-moment or living totally. Instead of basking in the glory and being present, we are saving that moment for posterity. It’s like saying I don’t want to live now, I will live later.
But as time went on, I had a change of heart and ultimately caught the photography bug and accepted it whole-heartedly.
The following are some of the pictures I had clicked while on an astrophotography trip to Spiti, Himachal Pradesh in 2017.
Music
Music means a lot to me. It has been like a true, all-weather friend. It makes my soul move, my mind dance, and my heart sing. I have been to many live music concerts. Live music gives me goosebumps. Very few other things come close to that feeling.
Reading and Writing
These are two indispensable activities of my daily life. I read, I introspect, and I write. I have been writing since my childhood in diaries and stuff. With writing, my aim is to paint my thoughts, feelings, emotions, musings in words that, hopefully, touch your heart and kindle a spark in your life.
I write for the sake of it, for the love of it. I think if writing is coming from a pure and sincere place, it will automatically connect with people, you don’t have to try to exclusively please the reader.
I write to make sense of my soul,
I write to make sense of this world.
Few quotes that I live by
‘सैफ़’ अंदाज़-ए-बयाँ रंग बदल देता है
वर्ना दुनिया में कोई बात नई बात नहीं। -सैफ़ुद्दीन सैफ़
If I try to translate it in my own broken way:
O Saif, it’s the way you paint your thoughts in words
Otherwise, there is no unique story to tell in this world.
Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness. — Alejandro Jodorowsky
I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer. — Jim Carrey
This too shall pass — Persian Proverb
Your skin doesn’t separate you from the world; it’s a bridge through which the external world flows into you, and you flow into it. — Alan Watts
My Favorites
- Book: Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach (maybe Availability Bias is at play here)
- Band: Coldplay
- Place: Gangtok (in hill station) & Chandigarh (elsewhere)
- Country: New Zealand
- Influencer: Shivya Nath
- Blogger: Maria Popova
- Podcast: On Being with Krista Tippett
- Idol: Roger Federer in Sports, Chris Martin in Music, Dia Mirza in Bollywood, Jim Carrey in Hollywood
What I believe in
- That we all are equal irrespective of our gender, community, caste, color or country.
- That there is something more to us humans than just our body and mind — a higher level of consciousness.
- When power of love will overcome love of power, the world will change.
Some Random Facts
- I am not good at multi-tasking. I like to focus on one thing at a time.
- If I’m working on something really interesting then I completely lose track of time and miss out on other important things.
- I am learning the art of being honest in way that doesn’t hurt people’s sentiments.
- Interacting with different people and getting to know their perspective gives me pleasure.
- I had defeated Table Tennis Gold-medallist of my college.
- Once upon a time, I didn’t want to get married, like ever. I used to be in denial of my emotional side. I always said ‘I don’t need anyone’ because I thought that it will show that I am ‘weak’.
- And when I finally decided in favor of marriage, I wanted to get married in a Gurudwara, Sikh temple of worship, though I am not a Sikh by religion.
- I went through a sleepless phase of around 15 nights before having a psychotic episode.
- I am suffering from a mental illness for which I have been taking medication for more than five years now.
- I have five diaries with me at present — three at home, one in the office, and one always in my pocket!
- I ordered a three-piece suit worth Rs. 12,000/- from Flipkart, an e-commerce platform, wore it on my cousin’s wedding, and then returned it within 30-days free return period and got the full refund!
- I have gatecrashed many weddings during my college years and also posed with a couple on the stage.
- I used to chat with strangers on ‘Omegle’, a web-based chatting platform, in my I.T. lab in college.
Connect with me
- Love Unites- My ‘webhome’
My weekly newsletter is called Know Yourself Better.
Every Sunday, I send an email sharing Life Lessons, Feel-Good Positive story, Productivity tips/app, Podcast/Book suggestion and a Quote/Poem to ponder upon. It’s insightful, enlightening, non-spammy, and forever free!