Take charge of your life

In day to day hustle and bustle, we tend to forget the basics of life.

Hope the following enlightens you..

Do you know why the earth is shaped like a globe? So you can kick it and it will roll away! the moment you wake up in the morning you are always with people and your mind is caught up in worldly thoughts. So sometime during the day, sit for a few minutes, get into the cave of your heart, eyes closed, and kick the world away like a ball. But as soon as you open your eyes, hold onto the ball because you need to kick it again in the next session. During the day be 100 percent attached to the work, don't try to detach yourself. But when you sit for meditation, then totally detach yourself. Only those who can totally detach can take total responsibility. Eventually you will be able to be both attached and detached simultaneously. Kick the ball and be in the goal! This is the art of living, the skill of living. Source: Forward in my email in box.

Happiness et al.

Its been seven months, since I got married and the same time since I am in God’s own country.

There are so many new reasons of being happy since then

Listing few of them as follows:

- Married life

o Being with your life partner

o Being with in laws.

o Getting along with your life partner’s relatives.

o Being with new neighbors

o Getting to know your life partner’s friends.

- Food

o Having delicious Kerala breakfast.

o Carrying lunch box to office and reading newspaper in that time

o Having snacks with family members in evening and exchanging news.

o Making new dishes for dinner once in a blue moon.

o Trying new restaurants at least once in a fortnight.

o Having noodles at least once in a week.

o Having at least one fruit in a day.

- Work

o Work hours from 9 AM to 5 PM

o Small company. Nice company

o Learning a lot of new things with each passing day

o Freedom of designing work. (Mix of Research Review and Execution)

o Taking up varied responsibilities and stretching.

o Flexibility of commuting by two wheeler or Auto or bus (hehehe)

- Others

o Meeting Mummy on webcam almost everyday.

o Meeting papa and brother on webcam once in a month.

o Staying in touch with other relatives and friends through internet social networking sites and mobile.

o Reading newspapers daily. ( a happiness factor )

o Good Network connectivity at work.

o Updating my HR knowledge.

o Reading books

Moving Ahead

Here I am, listening to the song "Shoot The Moon" from Norah Jones's album "Come away with me". Its Sunday 11 PM. A relatively small week is ahead, as long weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) is coming. Had a good relaxed Sunday. Watched a Malayalam movie " Puthiya Mukham" with subtitle along with hubby. Had noodles for lunch. Took a sweet nap in afternoon. Had Theplaa for dinner. Everything around looks good good to me.

Its been over 5 months since I got married. Life after marriage has changed a lot. But I am liking this life as well. This is because of the freedom I am getting to live life on my terms. My in-laws (Mother-in-law, Sister- in - law and Father-in-law) are really cool. I am really lucky to have them. I have full support of my Mother-in-law, so I feel as if I am home.

In professional life, I have joined a HR Consultancy company as Consultant HR and Selection.
There as well, I enjoy the freedom of designing my role and work. Every day is a new challenge. And I am excited about it. My Manager is a cool person. My colleagues are also very sweet.

And my sweetheart , my hubby is the sweetest of all because of whom I am enjoying each and every moment of my life.

As of now thats it.. Am moving ahead and am happy . :) :)

Hope

Hope is the driver of life according to me.

We hope, that we start speaking..
We hope, that we start walking..
We hope, that we start reading..
We hope,that we pass the test..
We hope to be successful...

Hope has so much positivity attached to it... it increases the chances of possibility..
Whenever the clouds of negativity block your head, make sure that the sun in the form of Hope shuns away all those clouds and keeps you bright.
Every morning I get up and tell to my self "Hope is a very powerful thing, let not ever lose it".

In the movie The Shawshank Redemption , there is a dialogue "Hope is good thing, may be the best of things, and good thing ever dies".

Plane delayed by bird on board

A South Korean passenger jet was grounded just before taking off so that crew members could catch a sparrow that was flying around in the cabin, airline officials said on Wednesday. “The bird got in through an open airplane door and was spotted during boarding,” said Cho Hyung-chul, a spokesman for Korean Air Line. The passengers on the flight were asked to leave the plane as the airline tried to prevent the bird from taking the domestic flight. “The bird was captured and set free,” Cho said. The flight’s 123 passengers were put on board a different plane and sent on their journey, which was delayed for nearly three hours.


Source: The Economic Times
Section: Suddenly Something
Link: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com

End (Bachelorette life) is a New beginning (Married Life)

Well, I was browsing through my saved SMSes and one of the SMSes was "Nothing happens by changing your face, but change can happen by facing the change". Though, I don't agree with the first part, but somehow I liked the placement of the words and the thought of facing change.

So, here I am standing at the so called peak of my life.

One very pleasant phase of my life is going to end and in few days and I will be all set to get married. Please don't read this as an unpleasant phase of life is going to start. But there are apprehensions and uncertainities that are attached to it, which I guess everyone who is going to get married has.

Being a person, who decides the path of her life, independtly, this transition will be really difficult one. Life will become a function of two lives, rather than one life.

Ideally, my dream is to make this phase even better than the present phase of my life. So I am trying my level best to become a suitable candidate for my would be. Reading "The 24 x 7 Marriage", book by Vijay Nagaswami. Ya, I know, reading books alone can not help. But if one knows some tips in advance then those will come in handy at the time of need.

At the end, they say, that suspense of marriage is only known after getting married. So, experience it. Enjoy it.

Here I am ready to embrace the change !

Here I am awaiting my wedding! :) :)

White and light

This is an innocuous food for all times. Different languages refer it as follows:- Assamese -Muri, Gujarati - Mumra, Kannada - Kadle poori , Mandalu and Mandakki, Konkani - Chanburo, Malayalam - Porei, Marathi - Kurmure / Murmure, Tamil - Pori, Telugu - Borugulu or Mora moraalu (similar to "mur mure"), Tulu - Churmuri and Kurlu and Hindi Parmal. Thats, white and light, puffed rice for you. (Courtesy :- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffed_rice )

Different permutations and combinations will give variety of items to tickle your taste buds.
Be it, the famous Bhel puri or laddoo coated with jaggery syrup, or spicy puffed rice upma and the list goes on.

Enlisting a few benefits which are top of the mind recall
- No Fats
- Rich in carbohydrates
- Easy to digest
- Not sure of expiry date ( I think its 1 year)
For more information on puffed rice nutrition ,check the following link http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-rice-puffed-fortified-i8156
Of course there are cons also, like :- it is more harmful for your teeth than any sweets. But, you can always brush your teeth after that.

For me, puffed rice is my dinner when Tiffin doesn’t come. So next time when you are coming to my place you know what is there for dinner. :D.

I vote against Noise Pollution

It was 12 am and I was almost ready to hit the bed. I was really sleepy by the time, I Bid adieu to online chat friends. Switched off the light and went inside the mosquito net. I was so damn tired that I was about to sleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. But the rhythm of drums was not letting me fell asleep.

Domlur village festival is going on and the statue of the deity is taken through the streets in a procession accompanied with dancing to the beats of drums. The so called "celebration" started during late afternoon and different drum beats were audible from all the directions.

Under the rule, live performances by bands are now banned after the 11 PM in Bangalore. So is dancing in clubs and discotheques. Karaoke nights at pubs and clubs, where the city's wannabe singers gathered to make some noise, have ended. The police have even ruled that club or bars keep music low.

So here I was ,sitting in my bed, closing my ears by hands and waiting for the procession to pass by. It was passing from the street adjacent to my house. Half an hour passed, still it didn't stop. I was really bugged up by this time. I picked up my phone and called "Just dial Bangalore". I asked them to provide me phone number of the authority whom I can speak to requesting can stoppage of this "Noise". He provided Bangalore police station, Indiranagar's phone number. It was 1:30 AM by now and still drum beats were so loud that none of the people in the locality will be able to sleep. I called up the police station and asked them to stop this nonsense. They told me that they will do this at the earliest. In say about, 5 minutes the noise became lower and then just stopped. I am not sure what happened. There are two possibilities here. Either the procession was over or the police came and stopped them.

Noise is just one example of the many vices that are present in our society. The moral of the story is that the proliferation of the vices is not because of the activity of the nonsensical elements but because of the passivity of the sensible elements. So blow the whistle and execute your right to vote … http://www.jaagore.com/

C'est la vie!

Here I am..relishing each bite of Maggi Cuppa Mania Chilli Chow Yo !, on a Friday morning. Its a long weekend. Still woke up at 5:50 AM at the ring of alarm...and called and woke up one of the friends, as per my promise. Its Ugadi (New year for the people of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh), Gudi Padva (New Year for people of Maharashtra) and Cheti Chand( New Year for the People of Sindh). So SMSed all my friends "Happy New Year", while reading India Today's 16th March 09 issue. And fell asleep in the mean while.. Woke up again ..Checked mails.. Thinking of going for a half day conducted tour to Bangalore.. (Abhi tak bangalore darshan nahin kiye).. have downloaded movies "American Beauty", "Good Fellas" and "He is just not that into you" through bit torrent..will watch those...on Saturday..may go for "Thermal and A Quarter's " rock concert at St. Joseph 's College of Commerce. Of course, the entry is free...Shall start reading some books that are long pending... (Shall post the book names , once I finish reading them).

Had it not been last minute cancellation of one planned trip , it being a long weekend, could have planned a good outing in and around Bangalore. But who knows , these are "Changing Times" and whether you feel happy or sad it all depends on your viewpoint towards life..( Reiterating the crux of one of my previous posts).. So "C'est la vie", a French phrase meaning "That's life" or "it's the life !

Anything is possible

It's difficult to even know what many of your limiting beliefs are because they are so well entrenched. Yet day after day, they hold you back and obscure your view of life's best possibilities.

To set yourself free of those limiting beliefs, crowd them out with inspiration. The more inspired you are, the more easily you'll dissolve the beliefs that hold you back.

Focus on a beautiful, wonderful, meaningful possibility. Feel how you must let go of your limiting beliefs in order to fully imagine and comprehend that possibility.

See that ultimately, the only thing that really holds you back is your belief that you cannot move forward. Once you've let that go, you free yourself to soar.

Anything is possible. And underneath all those illusions of limitation, you know it without a doubt.
Trade your limitations for inspirations. And fulfill the best that is within you.

Source: www.sparkpeople.com

Viewpoint (+ve)

The Recession Twister is going all over the place with each passing day. Not a single business is left unaffected due to its impact. Twisters are generally used to symbolize negative impact. But hey! Lets look at it in a different way. It is destroying the old order and is giving opportunity for new things to come up. This is one of the many perceptions and then the most popular perception is that of fear of unknown, job loss and lost business. The type of perception hat you don totally depends upon your viewpoint in life. Most often this viewpoint is labeled as luck, fate, destiny etc. Some curse their fate when things don’t work according to their expectations and others rejoice and feel lucky when something good happens beyond their expectations. Once in a while having either of the above feelings i.e. of being sad or happy is fine. But constantly cursing ones fate or feeling lucky always, are cases, which are purely based on viewpoint in life.

I know one employee who was asked to leave, as his company was cutting all the fat due to economic slowdown. Upon asking what is his next move, he happily said that he, along with some of his friends is mulling over a business plan of starting something in gaming industry. He had thought about this long back and now he is getting this opportunity to realize his childhood dream. This is a very live and recent example of what a viewpoint can do to you and it’s totally left upon you to choose from.

I am ending this post with a very powerful line from Paulo Coelho’s book, Alchemist, “When you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true”. Now here is the quiz question. Which viewpoint is this? a) positive b) negative

Music and me

These days not a single day passes by when I have not listened to my favourite music tracks. This music sets my mood for the entire day. Generally the day starts with fast beat music at a little louder volume. This gives tremendous energy. Singing along with your favourite songs gives you self-confidence. Music is a heavenly thing, which has no substitute.

When blogging is not on your mind

After so many months I am blogging. And I am having this feeling of uneasiness. A year ago, when I was pursuing MBA, blogging came naturally to me. May be, I had a lot of time to think, relax and structure my thoughts. But today, I am feeling as if I have to learn riding a bicycle again and keep in mind how to maintain the balance while driving.

It seems, life has become transactional these days. No new thoughts, opinions or ideas are coming. In a way, life is giving so many experiences so fast that before I gather them and put it in a structure, some new thing would happen and it would override the previous thought. Anyway, let me share with you names of my recently read books. In past couple of months, I read a book "Career Dynamics" by Edgar Schien. Its a wonderful book in which the concept of career anchors amazes me. One of the classics, you can say. These days I am reading another book titled "Winning" by Jack Welch. Warren Buffet says "No other management book will be ever needed" and I am finding it true. The book is full of Jack Welch's experiences which he had during his 40 years of corporate life.

So thats it. I shall post more soon.. Keep reading !!

Stress fosters superstition

There was an article sometime back in The Economic Times with somewhat similar title. That time it may be referring to stress at a person level. But in recent scenario it may refer to stress at global level. This stress is caused by the feeling of insecurity and no one knows when the ending of this dark tunnel. Last Diwali, the BSE sensex was at the 19k mark and the same sensex is today, just before Diwali, below the 10K mark. So we can presume that life is becoming lesser and lesser predictable with each passing day. As i read at one of the blogs the morale and loyality to the company are lat all time low across the globe...

If even in good times some successful people are superstitous with regards to letters, numbers and stars. Then in this turbulent times the reliance on such things is likely to increase. People just want some miracle to happen. Hang on people ... things will stabilize.. but it is for sure that twister in the form of economic slow down is becoming stronger and stronger day by day...so please find a safe place.. befor you consult an astrologer etc. and save yourself befor worrying about other lesser important things. ..

This is the time when survival of the fittest is in the real sense the name of the game and the change management concepts shall be put to acid test.

Baat samjaa karo

I was listening to this song "Baat samjaa karo" from the movie "Kyon ho gaya na". I have not seen the movie, so I guess the song is picturized on Amitabh Bachhan, as the male singer's voice in the movie suggests. Its a very happy kind of song, with all band baajaa and all.

Few days back I was not feeling good about my interactions with one of my colleague in the company. The thought of his/her bossing over me, even though not being my boss, disturbed me. Then I thought that why such thing was happening. The cause of problem was me and not him/her. I get busy with my daily work so much in the company that I hardly get any time to share the work in progress with him/her. So when its a "do the work" kind of situation then she/he has to tell me promptly as he/she is also busy.

So I told to myself that talk to that person atleast once in a day and exchange updates, which will result in a healthy relationship between both of us and will not cause the situation of "digging the well when the house is on fire". Hence baat samja karo ... c'mon Charlie !! :)

Organization as an organism

Yesterday I had gone for a general quiz. (Though no quizzer here.. going for such activities to have something new). In that quiz there was this question where we had to connect 3 pictures. One of them is as seen on the right hand side. This picture depicts the Gaia Theory where entire earth is referred to as an organism. This is a wonderful concept.

There were many questions but this one specifically lingered in my mind. Why is that so? This is because it resonates with my idea of organization as an organism. From past week I was thinking of organization as an organism. ( A huge one).

Lets compare an organization with none other than a human being. It goes through all the things that an individual experiences. Birth, growth, maturity and death are life stages of all the living organisms, so how then organizations be compared to an individual? This is where the differentiation comes in picture, in terms of the business of the organization. Well organizations marry (joint ventures) also but then it can be many times. Kindly note, I have mentioned joint ventures and not mergers and acquisition when referring to marriage. To me after marriage two individuals maintain their separate identity and continue to live life in each other's company. Mergers may be compared to a new child as the new entity has characteristics of both the parents. Acquistion I am not able to compare with an individual.. any one out there any creativity?

Goal Posts

Chetan Bhagat’s well circulated (through emails) and well acknowledged speech (provide hyperlink) at the convocation ceremony of SIBM Pune has a very powerful message mentioning that let there be continuous generation of sparks in you. They drive your life and make you excel at things which you are good at.

There are hundreds and thousands of stimuli in environment. You react to these stimuli according to your characteristics (brought up, education, reading, movies etc). And that in turn determines your personality. It’s a feedback loop here.

Once you reach certain goal post of your life, the spark generation rate decreases for a certain period of time and then you start hunting for next goal. This is not the ideal and healthy way to move ahead. As is with the heart beats for the healthy physical life so is with the spark generations for mental life. Both need to be regular. The number of heart beats is determined by the Supreme power of this Universe. The destination here is death. The number of sparks shall be determined by none other than you. The destination here is goal of life.

The feedback loop will contribute to the quality/type of spark generations and the clear cut path to reach goal posts will determine the number of spark generations. Hence good quality supply at regular intervals shall be responsible for a successful life, if to be successful means to achieve once goal.

Shall post on a regular basis...

Yes dear readers, the title of the post, as you can see, is my quarterly resolution. Here I go. Did you notice any thing peculiar in the first sentence? Well...Well…I have used the workplace jargon “quarterly" to qualify the word resolution in that sentence. Words used in one’s language inform about the surroundings/environment one is part of. And as, I have transitioned from being a student only to a working professional and a student (which I will try to be throughout my life), hence the use of this jargon. “Quarterly” is most commonly used as quarterly result, quarterly goal etc at workplace.

My intentions to post were to reflect upon some of the things that I have so far experienced as a working professional. Communication is very important at workplace. You are as good as your communication. It is a very broad term which covers written and verbal communication, presentation skills, negotiation skills, conflict management skills, selling skills, interpersonal skills, body language etc. Hence the way you communicate things determines your image in the organization. A professor in one of the training sessions that I recently attended, shared the following nugget of wisdom, “People in this world do not relate to the information with you.(Like education, age, etc) but rather the meaning they draw out of you. (The way you occur to them).” It seems very true to me.


Another thing, is one related to the organization. It is the implementation of the theoretical frameworks. It is very good to conceptualize things and come up with nice looking models. But models should finally concretize in to realities i.e they should be implementable at the end of the day. Implementation becomes easy and fast when they are simple and in sync with various other functions of organization and more importantly with the organizational strategy.

I shall post many more reflections in the future posts. So readers watch out this space.
You all are my customers and I shall try my best to cater to your interests. So may I request to you all to leave comments on my posts (no problem even if it is posted as an anonymous). Until next time, keep thinking !! :)

The Fallen Tomato Cart !! by Subroto Bagchi (Co-founder and CEO of Mindtree Consulting

Came across this wonderful article ....

I pass through this very intersection every morning with so much ease. Today, the
pace is skewed. There is a sense of disarray as motorists try to push past each other
through the traffic light. The light here always tests their agility because if you miss the green, you have to wait for another three minutes before it lets you go past again. Those three minutes become eternity for an otherwise time-insensitive nation on the move. Today, there is a sense of chaos here. People are honking, skirting each other and rushing past. I look out of my window to seek the reason. It is not difficult to find because it is lying strewn all over the place.
A tomato seller’s cart has overturned. There are tomatoes everywhere and the rushing motorists are making pulp of it. The man is trying to get his cart back on its four rickety wheels and a few passersby are picking up what they can in an attempt to save him total loss. Though symbolic in the larger scheme of things, it is not a substantive gesture. His business for the day is over.
The way this man’s economics works is very simple. There is a money lender who lends him money for just one day, at an interest rate of Rs 10 per day per Rs 100 lent. With the money, he wakes up at 4 am to go to the wholesale market for vegetables. He returns, pushing his cart a good five miles, and by 7 am when the locality wakes up, he is ready to sell his day’s merchandise. By the end of the morning, some of it remains unsold. This his wife sells by the afternoon and takes
home the remainder, which becomes part of his meal. With the day’s proceeds, he returns the interest to the money lender and goes back to the routine the next day. If he does not sell for a day, his chain breaks.
Where does he go from here? He goes back to the money lender, raises capital at an even more penal interest and gets back on his feet. This is not the only time that destiny has upset his tomato cart. This happens to him at least six times every year. Once he returned with a loaded cart of ripe tomatoes and it rained heavily for the next three days. No one came to the market and his stock rotted in front of his own eyes. Another time, instead of the weather, it was a political rally that snowballed into a confrontation between two rival groups and the locality closed down. And he is
not alone in this game of extraneous factors that seize not only his business but also his life. He sees this happen to the “gol-gappa” seller, the peanut seller and the “vada pao” seller all the time. When their product does not sell, it just turns soggy.
Sometimes they eat some of it. But how much of that stuff can you eat by yourself? So, they just give away some and there is always that one time when they have to simply throw it away.

Away from the street-vendor selling perishable commodity with little or no life support system, the corporate world is an altogether different place. Here we have some of the most educated people in the country. We don the best garbs. We do not have to push carts; our carts push us. We have our salary, perquisites, bonuses, stock options, gratuities, pensions and our medical insurance and the group accident benefit schemes. Yet, all the while, we worry about our risks and think about our
professional insecurity. We wonder, what would happen if the company shifted offices to another city? What would happen if the department closed down? What would happen if you were to take maternity leave and the temporary substitute delivered better work than you did? What would happen if the product line you are dealing with simply failed? In any of those eventualities, the worst that could happen would still be a lot less than having to see your cartful of tomatoes getting pulped
under the screeching wheels of absolute strangers who have nothing personal against you.
All too often we exaggerate our risks. We keep justifying our professional concerns till they trap us in their vicious downward spiral. Devoid of education, sophisticated reasoning and any financial safety net, the man with the cart is often able to deal with life much better than many of us. Is it time to look out of the window, into the eyes of that man to ask him, where does he get it from? In his simple stoicism, is probably, our lost resilience.

New Life in Progress

Two months and 7 days … this is the time I have spent at my Company. It has been a good experience so far. I got the chance of interacting with all the people of my department. This is what I like the most. (Interacting with people and that was part of my induction assignment). I am enjoying my work so far and learning a lot. My boss is a “fundoo” guy. He is the architect of my department. His attempt is to reach for truth and clarity in every thing. All the people in my department are very friendly and cooperative. Addressing each one of them with their first name was a difficult thing for me initially and a “sir” or “madam” inadvertently followed their name. In a week’s time got used to that. Getting used to many other things like that which are part of my organization’s culture. I am fortunate enough to get a nice bunch of people to befriend. This was a pleasant surprise package for me, which I got on joining.

Regarding my stay, I got a place which is 20 mins walking distance from my office. It’s the place, which I don’t want to leave. This is not because I am very attached to it and it’s the most beautiful place on earth, but because I have to give change of address for so many things in a row: my phone bill, credit card bill etc. The rent is quite high but then its okay considering the mental peace I get by being home alone (that’s how I console myself). I have given up now. I tried all the means to get ONE roommate. Many came to see my place and many suggested moving to a new place with them. But then intuitive (BLINK) me didn’t feel like moving out to other place.

On weekends it gets boring and loneliness starts eating you. I joined music classes soon as a part of long pending hobby to pursue. The classes are on weekends and that helps shun away part of the weekend boredom.

I am really excited for my new vehicle. I bought it on the same day I enrolled my self for music class. I commute to office and near by places using it and people get surprised at the first mention of this vehicle. Well expecting a similar reaction from readers as well. This vehicle is none other than a “BICYCLE”. Yes people I bought a Hero Street Racer. It makes me feel happy that I have a unique (different) vehicle and I am the recipient of whole lot of other benefits like no fuel needs, daily health exercise tool etc.

Reading books and newspapers form the rest of the part of my getting rid of boredom in addition to talking on phone with family and friends and surfing net from cyber cafe.
Don’t know till how long this feeling of “NEWNESS” will last: New job, new city, new phase of life as a professional.