Life is big, live it enough!

We come across many good and hard events when we are there with someone on a job. All these events make our feelings and many eventual emotional moments. Some of these remain as best and bitter memories from that roller coaster ride. 

Our relationship with that person develops over a period of time, amidst all the types of emotions. When we are there around with each other, we definitely think of both the good and hard memories, based on different situations that we come across. At some frustrating times we may also await the last day. 

On the day of separation, certain obvious emotions win over everything else. Forgetting all the hard feelings for that moment, doing which does not seen to be difficult though, we bid farewell to each other. In smiles and in tears. 

Years later when we meet again, though both the best and bitter memories from past pop up in the memory lane, the best memories win over the bitter ones. Bitter memories might also appear as if they all happened for good. Mind w and heart will be fully occupied with the goodness, a pleasing one undoubtedly. We feel happy not just about the reunion but also about the whooping goodness we feel from with in. Out of all the thoughts that go through us and out of all the words we feel like uttering, only very few will be spelt out actually.

Time changes many things and people eventually get changed. However, the joy of goodness does not change. The sweetness of it tastes the sweetest. It feels great. Simply superb. When we experience all this, and that too after being fully involved in the series of events and thoughts happening to us at the moment of reunion, we realise a lot about life. 

Life is not for the bitter feelings for sure. It's big. It's really bigger than any hard feeling we have for someone. It's bigger and better than any bitter memory. If we can think of these and follow them in our present, life will be fully lively. Enjoy people for the way they are. Life is big, live it enough. 

The best leader... Take Home #359

There are two most probable ways of thinking, "anything can happen" and "anything can be done". What you choose as your way of life shows to the world your either never-quit attitude or proactive nature, respectively. A good mix of these two attitudes makes the best leader.

Book: Winning

Author: Jack Welch

I got the reference of this book from my previous read "Nice girls don't get the corner office".  What impressed me to order this book immediately was the author's background. Mr. Jack Welch is a former CEO of the General Electric between 1991 and 2001, who joined the company back in 1960. In the wide spread and understandably dynamic corporate arena, getting to know about and from such an experienced professional, who has worked for a single organization for over forty years and is a CEO of that company on his retirement, is definitely not a daily routine even  for the greatest book-lover. Upon ordering the book online, got it in almost no time!

Out of all that he said in his book, the below are the few things (in my words) and my thought on those that I would like to share here. 

Choosing a mentor for yourself is important. Choose the one who grew up the ladder quickly if you are really interested in becoming another one to do so. I do agree that a mentor plays an important role in everything that we do, although at times we listen only to our inner-selves. Choosing the one who has already moved up the ladder as your mentor might or might not work for you, but choosing none does not work either. Obviously, that's the best guess, if only it turns out to be. 

Retaining talent is important but not at the cost of the team spirit and project. When you get a resignation on your table, you must be ready with a replacement by the same day evening. That's exactly what I used to think. No wonder if I have to say that I can't agree more. Organizations or projects should not be people dependent. They must be process dependent. Of course, people play the major role. But the only role of any manager is to keep things people independent. That's all he is paid for. Never let anyone think that they are bigger than the project that they work for. Find a replacement as soon as you can and hit back. After all, organization has to move on and it moves on too. History has many examples. 

Handling difficult bosses is not done just by you but by many people in all organizations. So remember to work it out smoothly. Never fight. It's known that no one can win a fight with his boss. If you think you have just won one, you may have to seriously recheck if it's at all fight or not. Handling people is an art to be practiced every day. Handling bosses is equally to be practiced. 

Prepare yourself or the bigger roles you need to play in future. Use free time to chalk it out what will you do if you be the one the next day. Wait for the opportunity, even if you need to stay back in the same organization for years and just continue your good work. This might not appear so interesting when you just read it. But if you have some years of experience in your kitty, and if you are the one who observes the organizational changes keenly, whatever is said by Mr. Welch might appear making some definite sense. People come and go; this is not just a life's philosophy, it's more than true in corporate world too. Opportunities always keep lingering around every corner that many people choose to move here and there. There you get the nut you deserve. Just wait and be as good of a worker as you have always been. Try and build some reputation as well along with the CV, things will work out for you.

Maintain your corporate networking. Do work it out all the time. It works back at certain crucial moments. The author gives an example for this, a real life use case of a woman. As many similar other books also do suggest and as my experience has also proven to me, I can quote maintaining network at work is one of the best things to do as part of one's regular work routine. You never know what comes from whom that can change the way your career is heading to. Do spend enough time on this. Have some friends, have them all across and remember to be one in return. It's not as difficult as it appears to be. You just need to be open knowing fully of the extent to which you must be open. That's all it is. 

So, that's all from my side about this book. I suggest this book to you all. Read it as earlier as possible in your career. You might just learn too many things! Practicing them is thereafter up to you of course. 

One last thing from the book, and in full confidence of the positive energy in me: 

Love, a beauty in itself

Love is in the wish,

To  rest the head,

Over his shoulder.

Love is in the wish,

To have someone,

To share your words.

Love is in the wish,

To be the one,

For your man.

Love is in the wish,

To stay all night,

Awake in his arms.

Love is in the wish,

To believe him,

As your this life's hero. 

Love is in the wish,

To do crazy things,

Along with him.

Love is, in a girls' perspective, a beauty in itself.  Love starts with a pool of small things, which put together appear as a miracle just happened, leaving no exact answer for you about how and when! Which, over the period of all these years and centuries, has remained the same. 

To get back to life... Take Home #358

Amidst the all lost touch, one small event or incident is sufficient, at times, to get back to life, to get back to doing what you like the most. It is, I think, not wise to wait for that event or incident to happen by itself. Find out ways to make sure you get inspired again. Take up that responsibility and do your best. Life anyway happens, do not let it happen in its own way.

Cherish the present... Take Home #357

What you have in your life might not be the best to have, according to you. Never mind, learn to cherish what you have. Always remember that what you are going to achieve in life is all based out of what you have during your struggle. Cherish the present. Strive for future. Success will be yours. 

Book: Nice girls don’t get the corner office

Author: Lois P. Frankel

I got introduced to this book by an article published in a local newspaper (www.eenadu.net) in Telugu language. By the title of the book itself I decided to but it. I got the discounted price from ‘Flipkart’ and in next two days’ time I had the book delivered. The first think I noted about the book was its weightlessness. I thought that was a perfect pie for a handbag-carry.

The subtitle of the book says it all. 101 unconscious mistakes women do that sabotage their careers. The word to be marked here is ‘unconscious’. If this one word was not used, every woman reader, like me, might get depressed to the core while reading the book. The reason is that many incidents from your past, especially if you are a working women in a corporate office, replay in your mind irrespective of the pace with which you decide to read the lines. The author explains in around two pages about each mistake. The author provides lots and lots of insights into the routine followed by women at work. After reading about every mistake, I ended up folding the book  and got lost into the memories.

This book is one of those very few books which give you practical understanding of the necessity of common sense. I liked this book very much not just for the practicality it showcased but also for the appropriate way the author did put the facts on paper. I read this book long ago. I’ve been miserably failed in writing this post soon after reading this book. Well, better late than never, here it is. I would prefer to say less about the mistakes mentioned in the book. You better read them yourself. After almost three months of reading it, I tried to put down what I could recollect. Below is the list. I’m sure, if you read the book you will learn to be conscious about certain acts, called as mistakes in this book, that you do as part of your regular work routine.

• Apologizing frequently and for less valued mistakes
• Cooking food and servicing it to colleagues
• Not concentrating much on looks
• Asking for permission instead of informing (say, taking leave)
• Occupying less space while being seated
• Trying to be a ‘man’
• Asking doubts/questions instead of proposing answers for your own questions
• Avoiding attending high profile meetings
• Not or less speaking in the meetings
• Combing hair/applying lipstick in public
• Not applying quo-do-pro
• Avoiding social networking
• Doing hard work instead of smart work
• Being modest more than required on receiving an appreciation
• Feared of taking responsibilities
• Allowing people to waste your time
• Staying away from high profile people
• Seeing boss as a father figure
• Silently accepting the unfair/discrimination
• Waiting too much to get recognized for the good work
• Striving too much for perfection
• Accepting the bad work immediately, unlike  men
• Thinking that raising voice is not allowed for women, crying in anger

I don’t relate myself to all of the above mentioned. I do connect with few of them. There is a lot change that I observe in myself, in the unconsciousness that I could win over in the past few days after reading this book. Since many incidents from your past come to you while you read the book, it becomes easier for you to be conscious about an act, called as mistake in this book, when you do it or about to do it next time. 

This book is a must read for every woman. I’ve already suggested many of my friends to read this. I gave it to my mother after I had been done with it. She is a working woman and I’m sure that reading book is going to help her too although she does not work in a corporate office. Human mentality is the same. Be it in a corporate arena or some where else, psychology remain the same more or less, I guess. 

The flights, from the train!

Travelling by train in the night can be proven as an absolute bliss given certain coincidences as following. 

You manage to get the lower berth, most important than that is you manage to seat yourself next to the window. Getting seated in your allocated seat needs to be hardly fought for at times, especially if you are travelling from northern India to southern part. The train crosses so many states, you get to travel along with people from all those states, that makes you all of a sudden realize the diversity in the Indian culture and people about which you must have studied in the early schooling days. That must be a moon light night, moon shall at least be shining more than half. The train crosses the river or a canal which is wider enough to see the waves. From the window, you be able to capture the scenery of the night. The water waves in the silver shade shine from a distance. You be dumbstruck! Well, this is one of the blissful moments. Likewise, everyone of us must have had something or the other of equivalent experiences. 

In the recent train journey, I've experienced another scene. This is not that typical one as above that I can ask you to recall one such that you had. Of course I managed to seat myself next to the window. I was travelling from Pune to Trivandrum; hence fortunately I needed not to fight much to grab my very own seat. Our train was crossing Pune, it was about to leave the last stop of Pune. From the window I spotted a flight in the blinking lights. After looking at the angle with which the flight was travelling, I took at least a minute to understand that the flight was actually landing in the Pune airport and was not just took off. Following my habit of eyeing the plane until its disappearance from the sight, I kept looking at it. It reached the run way, the height of it was so low that I could no more spot it from the train anymore. I thought the pilot must have landed yet another flight to add up to his experience. 

I was not yet out of the thoughts about that flight, and suddenly I saw another flight moving ahead in the same direction to land. This one was, may be, a minute away from the earlier flight. I then followed it again to keep eyeing it until it reached the runway! Immediately after that I jumped into the thoughts about my memories from my previous visit to Delhi. Our cab did not even move more than half a kilometer, there were two flights already crossed our cab to be successfully landed in the International terminal. Along the rest of our cab journey, I kept watching the sky only to spot the flights, one after the other, getting ready for landing. India is still 'the developing country', what must be the time difference between the landing of two flights in a developed country! I wonder if that's a worthy comparison!

After I saw the two flights from the train, and after I was done with the recollection of my 'Delhi' memories, my wish to spot yet another flight climbed up. I kept looking for one. Only after almost fifteen minutes of not being able make at least one flight, I discovered that I actually had to look further up in the sky, and in angle, to be able to spot a flight, as our train was moving away from Pune and hence from the airport. At that particular location, flight might still be up in the air as it would be minutes before it dripping down for its landing. 

I could go back to listening to music and sleep only after I spotted another flight up in the sky. I wondered how physics, the subject that must have almost killed many of us in plus two days, could be forgotten when it was supposed to be applied. And I'm going to remember this for the rest of my life, in all train journeys. May be that's why they say, experience is the best teacher!

Book: half girlfriend

Author: Chetan Bhagat

The title of the book did not impress me when I heard of it for the first time. 'Half Girlfriend' appeared to be the story of a girl who was halfhearted in her relationship. I also thought that this story had been probably narrated by a boy about his so called half girlfriend. One more reason why I delayed reading this book was the news I had read from the internet saying that a Bollywood movie was being planned based on the story of this book. I thought watching the movie will save at least three hours of my time. But the recent big billion day sale in 'flipkart' had assured I ordered this book for 99 bucks. We ladies buy mostly everything if there is a discount offer to it or at least something comes free along with.  

Initial two pages of the story proved that the decision I had taken on the big billion day made some sense, if not entirely correct. Mention of the 'journals of a dead woman' do create the all needed over-enthusiasm to make you delay your food routine. The story telling skill of the author definitely deserves a pat on the back. Because I had heard about the movie-plan off the novel, every line that I read and every situation made me imagine the typical Bollywood movie scenes. At few instances I actually searched for the actress who suits best for the 'heroine' role of the story narrated in the book, I could not be successful although. 

Yet another fiction work from Chetan Bhagat! A typical, of his type, fiction. As the story was about a half girlfriend, the author could not bring in the hard core romantic scenes in between. However, he could manage to hold the readers, at least me, to the story line. Narration was not so great, to be honest, so as the middle portion of the story. It bored me to the core when all of a sudden the heroine was out of the story for a while in between. Basketball was a good choice to build the story around in a college environment. No other game could probably have been a better choice for the theme of the story. 

The last part of the story was the best. Frankly, that's like a second-life for this novel. Since the story was to be built around almost ten years, there were certain sudden jumps the author had to take. To an extent they were wisely chosen. Bill Gates episode was too much to the plot. Well, I'm more interested in knowing who will play this role or how the director is going to change this particular episode of the story while making the movie. Anyone can be imagined while you read through, picturization is somewhat different I guess. 

Whatever, it was a good read. An interesting one to be specific. Although not the entire story but some twists of the story made me unable to keep the book aside and do something else! For me, 'Five point someone' and '2 states' still remain the best of Chetan Bhagat's novels so far. Awaiting another cracker of a fiction from him! 

Team delivers... Take Hone #356

A job can be started by a person, but to accomplish it in a fulfilling way, a team is definitely required. It's not just about setting goals, but it is also about planning it out in terms of resources that matters in winning businesses. After all, what a team can deliver is, most of the times, more than what an individual can contribute, or should I say 'always'!

Post-1100: A special dedication

Time changes.

Life moves on.

People come and go. 

Memories remain.

Love remains.

You gave your everything to us.

You gave up many things for us. 

You were always there with us,

You kept us united, as a family.

I could not do to you anything in return.

Except loving you back so much. 

My dear loving Grand-ma,

Love you so much!

Thank you for everything. 

Owe you a lot!

I miss you so much. 

PS: This is in loving memory of my grand-ma. I dedicate to her this 1100th post at my blog, written on her 12th death anniversary, tears being the witness! 

Relaxation... Take Home #355

A deep wish for relaxation is the strongest hurdle between success and yet another start, which shall be crossed in style by planning it perfectly and also by realizing the fact that relaxation does not help in defending one's own success feat. 

It's not that you should not relax anytime. It must be done in a highly controlled manner.

Congratulations to the Asian games medalists!

Firstly, congratulations to the Asian games metallists from India and all other countries. Podium finish is never easy. It takes lot many hard practice sessions and too many sacrifices in personal life. Yet, there have been players and their coaches who have done their best to come out well in the recently held 17th Asian games. Congratulations to them once again! 

Out of all the medals India have won, the one which has inspired is the good medal won be M C Mary Kom. By saying that I have no intentions of conveying that the rest of the medals are not valuable. It's just that I'm most touched emotionally by this medal superbly won by this woman. That's a real come back to the boxing ring. It will become one of the best come backs of sporting world, if she manages to wi an Olympic gold at the Rio Olympics 2016. All the best to her. 

Hockey team played their best sport in the past few weeks. Absolutely unexpected yet the most cherishing and satisfying. When they were on the podium and when the national anthem was played, it was one of the best experiences I ever had. May be it's too much to say it now, but I'm hopeful of a medal at the Olympics. Also, I hope this team will not take this win to head. Kabaddi is the sport I have a special affection for. Those moments of witnessing our school team practicing it hard for the zonal games from a closer distance and encouraging them to win it at the zonals just come to my mind every time I think of kabaddi. Those were some of the beautiful moments from my school days. Kabaddi teams won the gold medals as expected although not in the expected manner. Iranian teams played really well to put forward a tough fight. They will definitely, I think, take these losses seriously and will try to put forward their best in the upcoming games at Jakarta. Indian teams must prepare themselves very well by being extremely careful and aware of the opponents. 

4*400 m relay gold win run by the girls was fantastic. It's not that easy to win it for the fourth time consecutively. That too after all the misery the team had to go through after the ban they had to face in 2011. Well done girls, keep it up. Again, this is one of the events to look forward at the Rio Olympics. Seems Poonia got a life stabilising medal. She must have already been geared up for the practice sessions for Olympics. She must be consistent in her throws.

Every medal is important and hard fought in the games. Although the Indian squad could not manage to get more medals than last year, they have got some important ones this time. Saket Myneni and Sania Mirza did well. Appreciate the decision of Mirza. Badminton squad disappointed. So as the weight lifting, boxing, shooting etc. Abhinav Bindra's retirement decision surprised me. Good that he is still thinking of the next Olympics.

All in all, that's a good show by the team. But the fact is that it's incomparable to that is the Chana's, our neighbours. Wonderful show they did perform. All appreciation to the facilities created by the authorities. Indian authorities must benchmark this. Hope they do. 

MOM... A history, designed and created by Indian Scientists!

There have been many emotional moments round the country since the news was aired that India's Mars Orbiter Machine had been steered successfully into the orbit of the red planet. It's definitely a history created, a pure indigenous to be specific. Along with every other Indian, I'm too proud of this spectacular achievement of the Indian Space Research Organization. This project now has become a benchmark for many projects of  many other domains and not just space research. A well versed and truth filled book about the MOM will surely help the next as well as current generations. Hope to read one soon.

Congratulations to the team worked for this mission. I've read about the design accuracy needed for this mission to get accomplished especially when the MOM enters the orbit of Mars. Hats off to the team work and to the leadership.

There have been enough articles about the technical details of this mission. As always, I keep my post only to the point of my experience with MOM's success.

It felt great to see the Indian Prime Minister coming down all the way to watch the historic moment live. His speech later made every Indian recognize the importance of this mission. 'MOM never disappoints' was awesome too! It felt as if the country was in safe hands and most importantly under the rule of an inspiring leader, after a long time. A leader, who not just speaks but does it commendably. Thank you Mr. Modi, for that short yet memorable one.

When the mission was first launched, frankly, I thought, let's see if this MOM really survives for so many months in space. I had no idea what was the main aim of it. Over a period of time, especially since past few weeks, I started following its news. It's like this. Watching a movie not on its first day but after it is tagged as one of the biggest hits. Or may be like, following the news about a sports personality who is in news for a tremendous performance and who was no one before that. In India, Bollywood and Sports occupy half portion of the news. And why not? After all they interest to an extent that whichever is the topic, these two items do come in between, like the way I mentioned them as an example above while writing about world's first of its kind mission, produced by the Indian Scientists, Managers and work-force. 

As I said above, MOM's success story now has become a benchmark. In many of the recent discussions and debates, MOM was shown as an example, saying that if MOM happened, anything can happen! That's pretty much correct, but only if the intent and the hard work do match to that of the staff worked for MOM. Hope, MOM becomes the benchmark world wide by performing its intended job roaming around the red planet. ISRO must become an organization, by working for which people feel it prestigious. I will wait for that day. All the best team ISRO for many more endeavors to come your way. This nation is proud of ISRO and that itself is the proudest ever achievement for ISRO and its employees.

Jai ho!