Man was born to explore himself and around him. As the human kind progressed, we started drifting away from both exploring ourselves and the surrounding. We got caught in improving the materialistic quality of life rather than experiential journey to grow oneself.
Though the realisation is coming back now and modern beings are embracing the "tips and tricks" that our forefather use to share. Often, we have rubbished the learnings shared by our father's generation as being too old and calling it a "generation gap". Honestly, wisdom is the key to survival and that grows with sharing. I love to sit and listen if a grand pa or a grand ma is opening up their life experiences; outside any temple, park or school. What they will share would be their rich learnings that we could use in our journey.
I believe that our father should be the go-to man for any kind of issues - personal or professional - you face in life. One, he would advice only what is best in your interest. Two, he knows you and your perspective the best. Three, he is the most sound person around; much more than your friend, relative or teacher. But in the journey, somewhere we distance ourselves, knowing or unknowingly and assume that our father may not understand us.
One of those wisdoms that my father gave me long back came handy today. He has a habit of keeping all the legal documents to date in terms of address, number so on and so forth. He has a briefcase full of files with records of insurance bills, warranty cards, etc. I am sure he would be having landline connection invoice dating back to the year 1994, though little older and pale yellow in colour now.
I have kept most of my documents updated. As an IT professional, our life is like a nomad. We travel, and travel to places that we may not have thought at the onset. It becomes all the way imperative to keep documentations correct and handy. As we moved to Hyderabad, to do anything, we need a local address and an address proof. If I have to buy a vehicle, I need address proof to get it registered with Vehicle registration office (RTO). For updating address in banks, I need address proof. So suddenly life stops and all you have to do is get a house and an address proof at the earliest. I must thank Adhaar card, more on Adhaar card in a separate post, to make life easier. We found a place to make our home and we got the agreement Notarised, a legal document accepted locally but not necessarily by all. This document is not acceptable in my private bank and also in RTO but is commonly made in Hyderabad as it cost less and generally accepted with exceptions. At these two places, private bank and RTO, a registered rental agreement; which requires few thousand buck and length process is one of the required document.
Since it is not a mandatory document and requiring time and money; the house owner was not agreeable to do it. He is to fly outside country soon. I still visited registration office to find exact details and time required to execute the document. At the same time, I called sales agent from where I bought vehicle and told him the story. I asked him, "what to do?". He already expressed his helplessness but just before disconnecting the call, he mentioned that I can open a new bank account in PSU (Public Sector Unit) bank as they accept notarised agreement to update the address in their records.
I kick started my Activa, actually I just did a self-start, and went to the nearest State Bank of India bank. The serving officer replied to my query, "Yes, we accept a notarised document and it would take two minutes to update in our system." And then I could generate bank statement with new address and submit it in private bank and RTO; both accepts bank statement of another bank to update address.
The saviour here is having an account in State Bank of India. I opened this account twelve years ago, in Hyderabad, during my college days. I did not use it for 10 years and it became dormant. I have only made it active 2 weeks back at my native place, all because I had time to do and that inactive account was bothering me at the back of my mind. May be because I followed my father's wisdom till now and this account was an deviation which I wanted to fix.
foodforthought: Listen to the experienced people and learn their life lessons. It is not necessary to travel same path and learn same lessons again yourself. And yes, keep all your documents updated and handy!
