Politics... Take Home #404

Politics often succeed when they are played with one's own efforts. They do often backfire when played with someone else's efforts. When one knows the in and outs, politics are easy to be played and interesting too. To know the in and outs of anything, ample efforts shall be put into it.

Appreciate the efforts... Take Home #403

Be sensible enough to appreciate the efforts. Anyone can appreciate the success.

Leaders and Managers... Take Home #402

Leaders need managers and managers need leaders. Neither of then can succeed in isolation. To win the game, both need to be nurtured by the organizations. 

The Survival Instinct!

There are rules written  about how to live life but no rule is ever written about how to survive. When the human civilization was in its initial stages, everyone thrived for their own survival. It was not about living or leading life for them at that point of time, it was just about staying alive on the first front! It was all about being there, not there for. That's what they call as 'The survival instinct'. Over the period of time, the same survival instinct made many of human beings to capture as much as they could so that it would be tougher for anyone else to destroy them. Further to that, there developed all kinds of wishes to dominate, to command, to expand, to rule and at times to just dictate. Parallel to all this, there developed all kinds of emotions like liking, loving, caring, protecting, destructing, child-rearing, social bonding, and even sacrificing. All that happened lead to the human evolution slowly at some points of time and rapidly at some other points of time. 

What I feel is, now the ongoing generation of human life on earth is in the phase of evolving too rapidly, may be faster than ever. We do a wide variety of things, all at a time, and we keep doing multiplexing again and again even after failing to succeeded many a times. We do believe in all kinds of emotions, although we often forget to respect some of them. But that's just life, may be that's how life has evolved for all these centuries. 

One thing, as I understand it, has never changed all this long. That's 'The survival instinct'. Still there are no rules written or being followed when it comes to survival. Rather, there are self created and self accepted rules that let everyone of us do things the way we do in the times of need to survive. One must follow his instincts, his believes and strength, to survive, to just be there, to just belong, like the way our ancestors did at the beginning of the human civilization. We just have to survive when we have to survive and we have been doing it all this long. Nothing has really changed. May be, the way we survive today is different from that of what was followed earlier. The ground reality, the basic wish, the need, the possibilities, the 'unknown', all that is the same. 

Be it your personal life or professional, be it your home or the organization the you work for, when you have to survive, you have to survive. You  have to follow your own ways, unless they destroy someone else's survival altogether. You are on your own and no one can really pull you out when you do not do it on your own first. And all this is not very much different from what we do day to day. We already do many a things to survive. We just need to realize the facts, be conscious about what we do so that we can differentiate what must be done and what must not be. Because, survival is important but not at the cost of losing out on the 'humanity' which is better than anything else. 

Choose your case... Take Home #401

A team shall unitedly fight the competition. The moment the internal issues prevail the team spirit, that team is no more justifying their presence in the competition, even if they go ahead competing further and even if they win. 

Practically speaking, both competing and winning are important in their own ways. What's also important is the introspection later to the competition or win about what must have caused the internal issues. Not every team member is expected to be ideal, for that matter no one is ideal. But introspecting time to time helps everyone. Confronting at right times is useful. All we need to know is when and how to do so. And that varies from case to case. Choose your case carefully and consciously. 

Never humiliate a woman... Take Home #400

To all men out there:

Never humiliate a woman. Not because she cannot handle it, but because you cannot handle it if she humiliates you back!   

PS: This is the 400th Take Home post at my blog and its dedicated to all women out there who have fought it back strongly against every humiliation. Together we can!

Being a leader... Take Home #399

Being too much accepting is a trait of a follower and not that of a leader. If you aspire to be a leader, learn to say 'No', be it to your subordinates or to your bosses or to yourself at right times. It's tough but that's being a leader! 

Over this weekend, a couple of conspiracies!

Over this weekend, I've done a bit of study on couple of conspiracy theories, the proofs of which have been strongly put up both by the believers and skeptics. One is about the space travel and the other one is about the terrorist attacks. In one case the NASA says that its astronauts did land on moon as part of the Apollo missions, whereas the skeptics say that no human ever landed on moon. In the other case, the 9/11 terror attacks on USA are said or claimed to be by the Bin Laden's team, where as the other section of the people say that the attacks on the world trade center in 2001 were scripted by the US military forces to take on Afghanistan and Talibans. 

I've my take on each of these historic incidents. I'd like to share the same with you all. 

"That's one small step for man, a giant leap for mankind" are the first words said by a human live from Moon. Neil Armstrong was the man who said these words and along with that scripted the history. Apollo-11 was the mission that first took humans into the space to step onto the Moon. Not sure how much is true off the said and shown about the landings on Moon by NASA . From what I could get to know after reading and seeing through the data available on internet, I vote it as fifty-fifty for the whole episode. It's been almost half a century that the first landing on mood happened and still we are yet to figure out how to set up camps up there on the moon. Isn't that strange in today's so called rapidly evolving world's technology? Why haven't there been any other lunar landings in the later years and until now. What was possible in 1969 could not have been made possible once again for all these years! With the technology advancements as happened as on date, the repetition of the lunar landing of humans on moon shall not be a problem, if at all the landings telecast was live from Moon. Amidst of the huge uproar, NASA must repeat its historic feat, I think. If all that was staged then its not a significant problem, and if they actually stepped onto the moon, then there is no problem at all. But if that was all faked then let's hope that the monstrous lie was with some good intention. I know I cannot be this positive but the highly competitive world that we live in today makes me helpless often to be positive, otherwise the competition ends for you! 

The highly remembered terrorist attacks ever in the world are from the incidents happened on September 11th in the world trade center twin buildings. Somehow, this one does not need  a vote. I somewhere believe that this does not qualify as a conspiracy, if I may say so. it's evident enough that attacks actually happened as planned and executed by the team of terrorists. There are many a video tapes available claiming that there was no involvement of planes at all in the whole incident. I don't believe this. Some argue that there were prefixed explosives in the buildings and the demolition was a controlled one. For those who managed to get hold of the planes, isn't manageable to put the explosives there in the twin towers! I don't know! But to be frank, this convinces me that the whole episode was unexpected and well planed by the terrorists. 

That's how this weekend has been! Yet another Monday is going to start tomorrow. 'Monday blues' shall be the next conspiracy about which the research shall start and stop at the same point in time! Or may be not!

Mind Games... Take Home #398

Mind games are not just of this time. They have been there since many a generations. They are a bit more trickier than the games with the rules laid out. Just be willing, you never know when you need to face or play one. 

Mind games are not manipulative always. But yes, they are more than that at times and that makes them interesting.  

Be prepared... Take Home #397

Hope for the best but be prepared to face to worst. You are actually stronger than what you think. Believe that you can come out of anything provided you try, consistently. 

Say it and do it... Take Home #396

I wonder how much a difference these two sounds make, "I do not know" and "I will let you know". Prefer to say the later. And be aware that you will be valued for saying so. 

And actually letting know keeps the value up forever. 

How far!... Take Home #395

How big you dream is how big you aim. How better you approach is how far you reach. 

A lot better... Take Home #394

When in pain or loss, at times it feels like a lot around you has happened against you. But when you successfully cross that period and step into a better day,  you feel good about yourself for having crossed the hurdles strongly and successfully. The moments of deep sorrow from past appear very normal and less intensive when you are surrounded by success. 

Knowing all this is something important but realizing all this is a good experience to have under your kitty. Because, what you know is may or may not be what you act as. But what you realize makes you act a lot better.

In all support for M.S.Dhoni...!

Although I'm not a big fan of M.S. Dhoni, the Indian cricket team captain, this post is in all support for him. He is indeed captain cool. There is nothing wrong in being assertive at right time and he was so at the middle of the pitch during that recent infamous push! The bowler was at fault, in intention, and not the Indian captain. All of those, who are criticizing him to step down as captain, shall Get Well Soon and better start being a little more sportive! The runs he made today and during the world cup final under tremendous pressure are evident enough that he is something special at mind, never minding and just focusing! This is not as simple as commenting someone! Yes, he too has been at fault at many a times, but that's just being human, as everyone of us. It's just about how you look at it.  

 

I may not be entirely correct in saying the above, but that's what I have to say! It does not matter if India wins of loses today, does not matter if its a clean sweep, what Dhoni has done for the Indian cricket and the Indian sports is incredible. He has brought a new perspective to the way the game is played. Anyone can play and build records, but only few make actual difference to the 'sport' they play. Dhoni is one of such for Indian and world cricket. He has proven that being assertive is very important at win and loss. He has showed that being quick in decision making is important rather than lingering around and delaying the decision, right or wrong does not matter as time always deserves respect. Be it about leaving out the senior players, although I'm not impressed with this fully, be it about continuously giving chances to the ones he believed in, be it about managing the media and their annoying questions at times, Dhoni always had his own ways of doing things. Its not entirely correct that things have worked for him. Getting the things work for oneself is a skill in itself. Not everyone can understand it, and not anyone can just do it. I truly appreciate him for being so special always and for proving that to win as big as a world cup you need not eat up your nails. You need not bang your heads and tails. You just need to be as calm as possible and you just have to be thoughtful even if everything around you is going worst like hell. You just have to be yourself, in win and in loss.

Thank you MSD! Thanks for being a real time example of a lot many simple yet factual things of life.

My experience with 'Yoga'!

The International Day of Yoga - June 21st 

As the world is celebrating today the International Yoga Day, I wish each and everyone a very happy day of Yoga. Hope the celebrations will continue with the same or more intensity as with which the day is being celebrated across the nations today. 

Until an year before, I never thought I would do 'Yoga' ever in my life. Hailing from a rationalist family, the questioning has come naturally to me. As along as something is unanswered, I'm not for it. This was my attitude about Yoga too. What was it all about and how would it make a difference were a couple of specific questions I had. For which I obviously looked for the answers from outside. Of course, I thought a lot and looked for some probable answers from within, but in my experience Yoga never existed and there was nothing to get answered from within, for the understandable reasons. 

During the June last year, I had attended an Inner Engineering session organized by the Isha Foundation at Trivandrum while I was holidaying there. Only I know how much resistant I was about Yoga and that session. Somehow I turned it all around with a simple thought that "I will not let this time go wasted. If I'm here in the session already, I will give my hundred percent". There were twenty odd participants, all were from the companies placed in the techno park. The classes were held from 6 to 9 am. Trivandrum and June means rains. Incessant. Almost all the sessions were started right on time and ended just on time. I was not late to any single class. I truly enjoyed my early morning's walk, in a little drizzling, to the class. The way I was on time on everyday surprised me and there was one more thing that surprised me further. I did not think that I could do Yoga and sit patiently for about two hours every day in the morning without having breakfast. I also remember doing whopping blog posts  during those days. I was happy, very happy throughout. May be, I thought, largely because I was on vacation! 

I did not think that all I was taught during those seven days would work for me. For me, the last day was just another formal completion of a training session. But something unknown factor kept me practicing the 'Kriya' twice a day for the next forty days. I did in train, I did in the early morning and late in the night. I did it without amiss, for me that was the biggest surprise for those couple of months. After doing all that I was still not in a belief that something good was happening to me, something different was happening to me. Not then and not even after a few months. 

Now, it's been exactly one year since I started doing Yoga. I would not at all say that this experience is fabulous or this and that. But that experience is new. Its something different. As I look at it, my health has improved. My resistance power towards the cold and cough has increased undeniably. Now I can confidently sleep under ceiling fan running in high speed, I can drink cool drinks, I can eat ice cream. Actually, I'm confident about my health that it will not bother me much like it used to do once. There are some small other changes, in a positive sense, that I've come across. But mostly, what I still think is that its not actually the Yoga that I do but the feeling that I do Yoga keeps me going, keeps me believing that I will withstand the illness. This is strange, but this is what I feel, for now at least. May be, if I come across another dimension all myself, I might think about it differently. The thought that I do Yoga makes me physiologically and emotionally strong. But I must admit that there were few moments, my moments basically, while I was doing Yoga, I felt lost yet ecstatic. I do not know what's all that about yet. But doing Yoga, in the above terms, has acted positive on me. I'm drawn closer towards the thoughts of Sadguru, the founder of the Isha Foundation. I know that I'm not yet there, but may be I'm on the unknown journey. Result of which is presumably unknown but I'm keeping it open. Miracles do happen.  

Somehow I feel, spirituality is inherently in me. May be, its there in everyone. It has to be nurtured to get awaken. Do it yourself in your own style. Do not copy!!! Be thoughtful, unique and yourself. 

Dad, you're the first person!

You are the first person,

To tell me the bed time stories.

You are the first person,

To listen to my endless curiosity.

You are the first person,

To allow me to succeed on April 1st.

You are the first person,

To narrate the story to write.

You are the first person,

To teach me the chess game. 

You are the first person,

To teach me riding bicycle.

You are the first person,

To tell me that I can do it too as like many.

You are the first person,

To give me a proud look after results.

You are the first person,

To allow me to decide myself.

You are the first person,

To frame up the letter I write.

You are the first person,

To console me after a bad exam.

You are the first person,

To tell me to learn from different cultures. 

You are the first person,

To suggest me to learn giving a lecture.

You are the first person,

To remind me that everyone is different. 

You are the first person,

To guide me to read the failure stories. 

And Dad, you are the only person who care for me the way you do, who think about me the way you do, who is proud about me the way you do and so on. Thank you for everything.

That's the monsoon'2015!

This time the monsoon is on time in many of the parts of the country, especially in the southern potion. Whereas it has been a very casual one in Pune, Mumbai has once again been flooded with the whopping rain in the past few days. I heard few of the colleagues commenting that they might have to swim through Mumbai to reach the airport! Saw a few pictures taken in multiple area of Mumbai, including the railway stations resembling the boat jettys as can be seen in Kerala. It looked as if the people who were waiting on the platforms were waiting for the rescue boats! Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are as well the victims of the heavy rains so far. As its the beginning of the season, there is no considerable loss seen. However, the down areas are about to be vacated due to the flood coming from the upper regions of the rivers Krishna and Godavari.  

In Pune, it's not yet been satisfying fully. A couple of times it rained with storm but that's all. Otherwise, it's a regular one. I carry umbrella to office and barely used it! Everyday there are clouds, too black to think that bringing umbrella is one of the good deeds of the day done by me. But, at the end, there is no rain. Once a rainbow was seen, this too at the beginning of June. I tried to capture it in my mobile's camera but I miserably failed on many of my attempts, because of the dirty window of the MetroZip. At last, I could capture the below! 

Amidst the drizzling and the soothing airs, I could capture the third day moon. Moon looks beautiful whenever you click it, be it the first day or the full moon day! It looks just perfect and fantastic. It will be very difficult henceforth to click the moon for another couple of months at least. There will be clouds all over and you can only click the darkness yet awesomeness. 

As I write this, it's raining heavily. Or no, it's down-poring! Welcome rain!

A companion!

There may be an ice mountain around you. But when you have no one to join you for a cup of coffee, it gets so warmer for you, from within, that the ice mountain just remains as a monument in your thoughts. It can be beautiful for many, but not anymore for you. Provided you are not a loneliness lover. 

A companion is very important in life. It can be your life partner or whoever as you choose. Have someone who can be your side, may or may not be physically but for sure emotionally, during the tough times. And do not forget to be the one too! 

Wish and will... Take Home #393

A wish can start it but what can complete it is only the will. To succeed in life, have enough of these both. 

Beautiful soul

A beautiful face is a beauty too!

But not as long lasting as a beautiful soul. 

Love completes the heartbeat!

Love completes the heartbeat. 

From a nameless beating,

To a beating for someone.

Love completes the heartbeat!

Remember to have fun, at work!

Working is not bad. But only working can prove bad. Take time and have fun. It can be with your cubicle-mates or teammates or friends at work. Looking around and having good time with your mates is a lot important as that of you meeting the target dates. A crossed target date can be compensated, if you really wish to do so. But you do whatever you can, the lost health cannot be brought back. And when you are ill, its not the target date that comes for your rescue. Its the smell of the medicines that surrounds you, does not matter whether you like it or not. 

Its always better to be occupied with work when you are at your work place. But add some social bonding to it, because doing so can refresh you at any time you want. This might appear a bit being selfish, but be selfish about your health as rightly as that of you be selfish about your work. Its nothing wrong, I think. Remember to have a walk around and have fun with your mates in your and their free time. And if the free time is not available, then make free time. Making time might be difficult but making free time to have fun is not difficult. Try it out and it will work for you too as it has been working for many a people over all these years across the globe!

Work lets you earn, be it money or fame or name. But do not let it earn bad physical or mental health for you. It is work and it shall be worked in such a way that you work for yourself too at all point of times. Be selfish, if you have to be. And have fun. 

Rule is rule, rule for all including the pedestrians!

It was a week back, when I took off from work for half a day, that I came across this incident in one of a prominent road junctions in Pune. It's usually a busy four road junction and was nothing different even that day. 

I was walking from one of the four sides of the cross roads and  I saw the vehicles stopped ahead of me and behind the STOP line as the red signal was on. I could not cross the road immediately. I kept waiting for a few seconds. That's when I saw a white colored car being driven by a man in his late forties crossing the road in full speed by breaching the traffic signal. Two police men were present at the place and one of them came in front of the white car and signaled the driver to take it aside. Meanwhile, the driver of that car was busy in setting up his seat belt. Finally he stopped the car a side. I started crossing the road as there was a green signal for the people to walk across the zebra crossing. I turned over my shoulder and looked at the police man and the car. The police men was busy in filling the challan and the car owner was busy in hiding the high value currency notes in his vollet. 

That's exactly when I also happened to notice two women, in their late twenties probably, crossing the road even though there was no green signal showing up for them to cross the road. There were all two and four wheelers running around them across the road. These two women were noticeably careless on their way to the other side of the road. I crossed the road and waited under the over bridge to check if these ladies would also be stopped by the police men who had earlier stopped the car. But they did not bother to stop these two ladies and carried on looking at only the motorists. 

But then I thought, if the driver of the car was stopped and fined for driving against the traffic rules, why weren't the two ladies stopped by the police who were crossing the road against the same traffic rules! Even the people who walk across the four road junctions without following the rules shall be fined too. They deserve the punishment as equally as that of the motorists who do that, knowingly or unknowingly. The confusion that such people create is inexplainable as for that short moment, anything can happen actually in panic. Its not that only when you drive the bike or a car that you have to be aware of the traffic rules. Even when you walk you must know them. After all, you are using the public property which belongs to you and to the millions of other people. The pedestrians are equally responsible for the accidents especially when the incidents happen in the middle of the road. 

I'm not sure if fining the pedestrians is there in the traffic rule book or not. But I strongly believe that it must be included, if not there. And of there already, then better traffic police look at the walkers too and not just the motorists. 

Strike back at the odds... Take Home #392

There are innumerable posibilities in life. Don't worry too much about anything that does not happen the way you want it to happen. Strike back at all the odds and welcome a new dawn at every moment of your life.  

Get into action... Take Home #391

What you do is you. 

Not what you can!

Better, get into action.