Poetic Justice

Year 2002, Oct:
A lanky young boy with an unsure demeanor walked in the campus of KIIT, an engineering college in Bhubaneswar. But he was starry eyed dreaming of doing silly little things. One of the things he did was publish an inter campus magazine called Akanksha in his 3rd year . He was the chief editor then.

On the magazine unveiling ceremony, which was attended by more than 200 students at the open air amphitheatre, he was asked to address the gathering. Never before had he spoken in public. He was given a rousing welcome and called onto stage. With pride swelling his chest he walked onto the stage and felt the world at his feet. With heart thumping, adrenaline pumping, how much he had craved for a moment like this. He walked through the stretch of the stage and faced the mike. And then he looked at the audience for the first time. It looked like a sea of heads each one poring on him. The two hundred odd people looked like two million.

He went blank and stared at the sea with horror. Blood drained out of him. Time was suspended for eternity. His mind raced. He fell silent for half a minute. So was the audience. And soon the whole crowd cheered with applause. An applaud that was meant to boost him. He mumbled ‘sorry’ and walked out of the stage. The heaviest steps he had ever taken in life. Steps of shame and disgrace. Back stage he let out a loud shriek and cried like a kid. An honorable moment had turned into a moment of ignominy. He was heart broken. He was crushed.

Year 2010, Feb
Venue was the same campus of KIIT. The crowd had gathered again to listen to him. This time they had paid to listen to him. This time he didn’t fall silent. This time he didn’t go blank. This time the audience cheered not out of sympathy, but out of approval.
The boy had redeemed himself of the ignominy after 7 years.
The boy was me. And I am proud.

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Be Comfortable With Your Weaknesses

As humans, we all have our crosses to bear, our Achilles heels to nurse, and chinks in our armor. With time we learn to live with it. We also outgrow other aspects of our personalities that make up for our inadequacies.

But there are many of us including me who suffer pains with this realization of their shortcomings. They suffer for a long long time before they begin to accept and come to terms with that reality.
I have always suffered from low memory retention from my early childhood. I remember experimenting with memory capsules during my 10th exams to help me in my studies. I do not know if it helped. During my engineering(which was a wrong decision for me), I struggled a lot with my studies. I put in a lot of effort studying and understanding concepts with a passionate zeal to outdo others. I remember taking Digital Processing subject by its horns and preparing it. I prepared notes that would envy my classmates. But within no time the concepts began to degenerate from my mind. No amount of reinforcements could help me improve retention.
I have always been an average student. By no means it meant I neglected or ignored studies. I was one of the most hard working lot. But it just didn’t translate to good scores.

I remember watching the movie Koi Mil Gaya, where the autistic character cries and complains God on why he can’t seem to pass his subjects even after studying so hard. Tears welled into my eyes because I could relate to him so much.

I carry the same burden today that has often has its bearing on my professional and personal life. Forgetting my own phone number or my employee code is common. I have put myself under embarrassing situations when I have to put up a blank face when asked about a certain element of my work status. Recollecting names of new people I meet is a tasking effort.
I have tried recourse to medicine and clinical help including meditation, but that hasn’t helped.
But after all these years, if I look back and reflect, there is so many positive aspects out of this inadequacy. Firstly I became a hard worker.

“If you can’t win with talent, triumph with effort” was the slogan that became my guiding force. Subject that my peers took an hour to absorb, I took two hours. My endurance to go through the grind increased. Today hard work is a non issue for me because it is ingrained in my DNA.

I also became a lot more organized relying heavily on notes and updates. I don’t consider it a weakness any more if I cant save data on my head. If someone asks me for a piece of information all of a sudden, I say “give me a second”. And the data is gleaned out from my diary.

I also realized with experience, that it is not just me. Everyone has his own share of failings and weaknesses to bear. We should accept it and be comfortable with such personal inadequacies.
Yet we also must make up for these inadequacies by strengthening other faculties of our mind and body. With time your inadequacies wouldn’t bother you because your strengths would have far outdone your weaknesses.

A prime example of a person with similar inadequacy is Subroto Bagchi who set up his company, Mind Tree Consulting. A man from a political science background setting up one of the most admired IT company in India outmaneuvering all his inadequacies. He was aware that he had wide gap in his technical knowledge. He was also aware that he may never bridge this gap and more importantly he was comfortable with that fact.

Working amidst highly competent teams who tackle complex technical problems, he often found himself a misfit. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t fathom the complexity and depth of their work. But Subroto Bagchi never pretended to understand things and has humbly accepted his ignorance on such topics. He keeps mum in meetings where he cant contribute and allows others to take center stage. Yet because of this he has never felt excluded or reduced in stature.
“Sometimes stating your ignorance can be the simplest solution”, says Subroto.

Contd. (Part 2)

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My sessions at the Personal Branding Workshop

Session 1: Brand You

As part of the Personal Branding Workshop on 12th Feb at KIIT campus, let me share the front slides of my presentation. Session 2: Social Media to power your career

The target audience is MBA and engineering students in Bhubaneswar including XIMB students. There is also a group of working professionals.
Please provide inputs to better slides.

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Personal Branding Workshop

(Click for a bigger view)

I on behalf of Live More am conducting this workshop at my alma mater KIIT. Along with me are other two speakers, Mr Ghani Zaman and Latika Pratap.

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On Work!

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life” The words sound enchanting and very liberating. But doesn’t it look too glamorous, too idyllic to be true. If everyone worked on what they were passionate about how would the world work in sync? I mean someone has to guard the traffic signal the whole day, someone has to sweep the streets and unchoke the drains, someone has to nurse the sick and sullied patients, someone has to tar the roads in seething heat. If all of these people moved out of their regular jobs and pursued something else, what would become of the world we live in.

Till very recently, I used to crib about my field of work. I used to deck up my facebook updates with quotes like, “"Chase your passion, not your pension.”. My work always was monotonous for me. It lacked variety. I had this false concept of work that led me to hate my job in hand and I often dreamt about a job that would be blissful, a job that would bring me that promised joy; when work would never feel like work again. Trust me, next time you hear someone lecturing you on the same, sue him; because it would cost you some precious years chasing a chimera

Wisdom dawned onto me, when I hit onto a certain chapter from the book, “The Professional”, Subroto Bagchi. I paused and reflected for atleast a few minutes after eyeing its first sentence. The chapter starts with an on the face statement: “Jobs are not meant to satisfy us”. A sobering thought that made me shuffle and shift across my chair and prodded me to focus on the chapter with renewed anticipation. “Jobs are not animate things that have knowledge of who we are, what we are seeking and what our special needs could be”, the writer went on.

Many like me argue that it is not work that bothers, but the routine of the work that is boring. For all those people who think their job as mundane and monotonous, they need to learn from Nature. The earth revolves around the sun with clock work regularity. It goes round because of its capacity to be predictable. The bees and insects pollinate the fields so that we get our food with ‘monotonous’ regularity. And what is not routine about a cardiac surgeon who operates on people every day? Or for the pilot who flies airplanes? At Narayan Hrudalaya, new born babies who are a few months old are operated for heart ailments. They must remain for days in the ICU where every baby has a dedicated nurse round the clock. She just cannot take her eyes off the infant—not because of the doctors who operate and leave, but because of the nurses whose routine job is to attend to babies after the operation.

Some people dislike the work, some like me like the salary but not the work, some dislike their boss and yet others dislike their colleagues. In some cases, people dislike the idea of work itself. Subroto Bagchi in the book says, “a professional realizes that work is a blessing and, most of the time, it is therapeutic. We are lucky that we have work to do. Every day, increasing number of people in this world feel left out, unlucky, because they have woken up to a morning without any work. Go to villages and you will realize what unemoloyment means and how scored of people will be grateful if they can even manage seasonal employment.”

Being a CBSE student in school I have grown up looking at the emblem donning our book covers every year that read, “Work is Worship”. I am sure as kids many of us never gave a thought to its essence. After all these years, it seems I am beginning to get it. The key is to love what you do if it is not possible to do what you love.

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Can’t Find Your Passion?

Ok you have heard it time and again. And as if it needed a reinforcement, the nation hears it again from Aamir Khan. The movie says you derive true happiness when you do what you are most passionate about.

Life coach Cheryl Richardson says that the clues are all around you. Uncover your true passion—and start living it!

Listing out a few tips to help you find your passion.

STEP 1:GET QUIET
For most people, the road to connecting with passion begins with practicing good self-care. This means slowing down, spending time with yourself, taking good care of your body and mind, nurturing your spirit, and engaging in activities that will move you out of your head and into your body.
Once you become passionate about your self-care, you'll know you're on the right track.

STEP 2: Become Sensitive to Your Environment.
Once you're more connected to your feelings, you'll be ready to do a little exploring to discover the specific, personal things that best ignite your passions. Spend one week paying close attention to what excites you, touches you, inspires you to think in a whole new way, or even frustrates you. Watch for clues. Stories in newspapers, programs on television or conversations with friends may give you an indication of those things that will lead you to your passions.

STEP 3: Answer a series of questions.
• What interest, passion or desire are you most afraid of admitting to yourself and others?
• What do you love about yourself?
• Who do you know that's doing something you'd like to do? Describe yourself doing it.
• How could you make the world a better place for yourself and others?
• What's stopping you from moving forward with exploring your passion?

STEP 4: Go on a Treasure hunt

Go on a treasure hunt in your own home. The things you hold onto can provide clues to your interests and passions.Do you make connections to old pictures? A special memento from a memory that means something to you? How does what you find make you feel about yourself and your dreams?

Step 5: Take a Risk.
Stop thinking about your passions and start doing something. Take a risk, and step out to try something new. By challenging your fear with action, you'll not only raise your self-esteem, you'll expand your comfort zone. If you're not sure of what to do, ask a trusted friend or partner for ideas. Remember that good luck happens when you're in action. And, if you try something new (even if you're not sure of the outcome), you may discover a passionate interest by accident!

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WE HELP OURSELVES, NOT THE WORLD: Vivekananda

I had this article by Swami Vivekananda with me for long time. Sharing this with you all if you havent read this before. It's his perspective on why one should help others.

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Our duty to others means helping others; doing good to the world. Why should we do good to the world? Apparently to help the world, but really to help ourselves. We should always try to help the world, that should be the highest motive in us; but if we consider well, we find that the world does not require our help at all. This world was not made that you or I should come and help it. I once read a sermon in which it was said, "All this beautiful world is very good, because it gives us time and opportunity to help others." Apparently, this is a very beautiful sentiment, but is it not a blasphemy to say that the world needs our help? We cannot deny that there is much misery in it; to go out and help others is, therefore, the best thing we can do, although in the long run, we shall find that helping others is only helping ourselves. As a boy I had some white mice. They were kept in a little box in which there were little wheels, and when the mice tried to cross the wheels, the wheels turned and turned, and the mice never got anywhere. So it is with the world and our helping it. The only help is that we get moral exercise. This world is neither good nor evil; each man manufactures a world for himself. If a blind man begins to think of the world, it is either as soft or hard, or as cold or hot. We are a mass of happiness or misery; we have seen that hundreds of times in our lives. As a rule, the young are optimistic and the old pessimistic. The young have life before them; the old complain their day is gone; hundreds of desires, which they cannot fulfil struggle in their hearts. Both are foolish nevertheless. Life is good or evil according to the state of mind in which we look at it, it is neither by itself. Fire, by itself, is neither good nor evil. When it keeps us warm we say, "How beautiful is fire!" When it burns our fingers, we blame it. Still, in itself it is neither good nor bad. According as we use it, it produces in us the feeling of good or bad; so also is this world. It is perfect. By perfection is meant that it is perfectly fitted to meet its ends. We may all be perfectly sure that it will go on beautifully well without us, and we need not bother our heads wishing to help it.

Yet we must do good; the desire to do good is the highest motive power we have, if we know all the time that it is a privilege to help others. Do not stand on a high pedestal and take five cents in your hand and say, "Here, my poor man," but be grateful that the poor man is there, so that by making a gift to him you are able to help yourself. It is not the receiver that is blessed, but it is the giver. Be thankful that you are allowed to exercise your power of benevolence and mercy in the world, and thus become pure and perfect. All good acts tend to make us pure and perfect. What can we do at best? Build a hospital, make roads, or erect charity asylums. We may organise a charity and collect two or three millions of dollars, build a hospital with one million, with the second give balls and drink champagne, and of the third let the officers steal half, and leave the rest finally to reach the poor; but what are all these? One mighty wind in five minutes can break all your buildings up. What shall we do then? One volcanic eruption may sweep away all our roads and hospitals and cities and buildings. Let us give up all this foolish talk of doing good to the world. It is not waiting for your or my help; yet we must work and constantly do good, because it is a blessing to ourselves. That is the only way we can become perfect. No beggar whom we have helped has ever owed a single cent to us; we owe everything to him, because he has allowed us to exercise our charity on him. It is entirely wrong to think that we have done, or can do, good to the world, or to think that we have helped such and such people. It is a foolish thought, and all foolish thoughts bring misery. We think that we have helped some man and expect him to thank us, and because he does not, unhappiness comes to us. Why should we expect anything in return for what we do? Be grateful to the man you help, think of him as God. Is it not a great privilege to be allowed to worship God by helping our fellow men? If we were really unattached, we should escape all this pain of vain expectation, and could cheerfully do good work in the world. Never will unhappiness or misery come through work done without attachment. The world will go on with its happiness and misery through eternity.

To recapitulate the chief points in today's lecture:First, we have to bear in mind that we are all debtors to the world and the world does not owe us anything. It is a great privilege for all of us to be allowed to do anything for the world. In helping the world we really help ourselves. The second point is that there is a God in this universe. It is not true that this universe is drifting and stands in need of help from you and me. God is ever present therein, He is undying and eternally active and infinitely watchful. When the whole universe sleeps, He sleeps not; He is working incessantly; all the changes and manifestations of the world are His. Thirdly, we ought not to hate anyone. This world will always continue to be a mixture of good and evil. Our duty is to sympathise with the weak and to love even the wrongdoer. The world is a grand moral gymnasium wherein we have all to take exercise so as to become stronger and stronger spiritually. Fourthly, we ought not to be fanatics of any kind, because fanaticism is opposed to love. You hear fanatics glibly saying, "I do not hate the sinner. I hate the sin," but I am prepared to go any distance to see the face of that man who can really make a distinction between the sin and the sinner. It is easy to say so. If we can distinguish well between quality and substance, we may become perfect men. It is not easy to do this. And further, the calmer we are and the less disturbed our nerves, the more shall we love and the better will our work be.

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Wildlife Photography Camp

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Power of books

I remember giving my younger sister life lessons, when I was still young. I told her, “We are from a lower middle class family. Our father works in a small private held company as an accountant. We do not have IAS officers, doctors, scientists, and bureaucrats walk in to the drawing rooms of our house. The seemingly successful people about whom we read about in newspapers and TVs are not within our reach. But there is one way we could reach to them. Through books. We can interact and converse with some of the greatest minds in the world through the books written by them or about them”

I believe more in this thought today than ever before. I dont claim to be well read. But reading is my hobby and with whatever little I have read I think books are the only way to inspire you. Because most often the environment around you is mediocre. People often complain about the quality of their lives not being good. People say their life isn’t happening. But I feel they think so because they arent around people who are happening. It’s books that than can make your lives happening.

You all would know about the 20/80 principle. The world is being driven by 20% of the people (I believe its even less) and 80% follow them. It is these 20% people who are the decision makers and wield authority and influence over other 80%. Though the rest of the species does want to improve it is held up in mediocrity because of lack of examples and inspiration around them. It is through books that one can draw inspiration from and look for examples. If the immediate world around you is mediocre and you fear falling into the same rut of mediocrity read great books. Read biographies of some of successful people to know how they conducted their lives. Books give you hope. Books give you the power to change yourselves if it is backed by genuine intent.

I have seen people debating over the futility of self help books. After so many years reflecting on my past, I can honestly conclude that self help books have been helpful. People often argue that they are mature enough to be needing self help books. And when they read, they would conclude, “there is nothing new”. But most often self help books reinforces things in your mind that we already know. With the daily grind of life, we often tend to forget implementing things that we already know. Personally for me, though I feel the content is common knowledge, I still read it. I feel good to read it because it helps me condition my thought process and distinguish between the right and wrongs of the world. You wouldnt know how and when subtely it would have left an imprint in your mind. And all that you read consistently manifests in some way on your actions.
Some of the books that have shaped me over the years are:

• Jonathan Livingston Seagull: A book recommended by a good friend 5 years back, it continues to inspire me and I try to live upto its message. The message that I can sum up is, as you go up in life, you might feel lonely at the top but you will soon find people of your ilk. Dare to be different. Dare to be ‘weird’ as branded by your peers and challenge the status quo.


• The Secret: It taught me the law of attraction. I want to believe in its explanation.


• The Alchemist: One statement, “When you want something badly, the whole world conspired to help you”


• Go Giver: It taught me the power of giving. Give generously and you would receieve.


• Swami Vivekananda’s books: It again taught me to give back to the world.
• How to win Friends and Influence People: The first book I ever picked up other than course books. Top draw!


• India Unbound: Gurcharan Das’ masterpeice will give you a lot of precious perception about entrepreneurship and India.


• Walmart Story: Sam Walton’s modesty even after owning world’s largest retail chain was too humbling to learn.
  

There are many other books that are business books and autobiographies. I could think of only these now.
(When I asked to one my students in my class on what sort of books she read, she mentioned Chetan Bhagat . It blew my lid over. My next post would be on why I dont read Chetan Bhagat. On second thoughts, my blog doesnt deserve a post on Chetan Bhagat. Apologies to all Chetan Bhagat fans.)
In this tough world in absence of role models, we often are lost. It reminds me of a very learned colleague who said, “In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is the king”. There is a scarcity of hope and inspiration. There is pain and suffering. Often when life presents difficult circumstances we feel hopeless, frustrated, and shattered. We feel like a trapped soul trying to catch some breath. Trust me, a good book can lend you that breath of fresh air. It can lift your spirits. It has the power to alter the course of your life. The power to give life to lifeless, hope to the hopeless.

Though the post is about books, pardon me for digressing. Let me also talk about TED videos. Internet through TED has given us a gift. TED gets some of the best minds of the world to talk to the masses. All these talks are saved on the site for everone’s consumption. A TED talk a day is what i recommend.

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Does grabbing opportunity make you opportunist?

I am reading “Opportunities” by Edward De Bono. I have no qualms in providing you verbatim account of De Bono’s opinion to the question above.

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The word ‘opportunity’ and ‘opportunist’ have bad connotations. They suggest a hovering vulture rather than a hovering eagle. They suggest someone who is hovering and waiting for an opportunity to emerge. Then that person sweeps down and seizes the opportunity ahead of anyone else.

The negative attitude is partly based on jealousy (‘why didn’t i spot that opportunity?’) but also on the feeling that an opportunity is only taken at someone else’s expense. There is a feeling of expediency and short term gain. Opportunity is equated with the activity of a speculative builder who builds and sells shoddy houses and then disappears from sight. There is a feeling of irresponsibility or even outright exploitation. The black marketer is known to be an opportunist. The fast buck merchant and the fly-by-night operator are also opportunists.

Even the entrepreneur is contrasted negatively with the established businessman because there is a tinge of exploitation. Any gains are automatically regarded as being at someone else’s expense. The go getter and the go-go operator are also opportunists.

It cannot be denied that the irresponsible, selfish, exploiting, short-term profiteering opportunist does exist. But it must also be acknowledged that if it were not for people who saw and developed opportunities the standard of living would be very much lower. The United States was a land of opportunity. Henry Ford saw a way of making motor cars that would enable every family to buy a car. Corporations were sometimes slow to see the opportunities turned up by inventors but in the end the developments came about: radio and television, telephones, artificial fibres, air travel, anti-biotics.

The opposite of opportunity seeking is not stability or conservatism, it is stagnation and atrophy. It is wrong to think of opportunity in terms only of new gadgets and expanded industrialization. It may equally be a matter of expanding food production, better methods of birth control, new sources of energy, redesigning jobs so that they are more enjoyable, increasing leisure time, improving education and so on.

We can seek opportunities in any direction we wish and for any purpose we wish. We may seek opportunities for the good of society as much as for the good of our corporation or ourselves. The trouble is that no one would believe such altruism. Society finds it difficult to believe that an organization like IBM can operate opportunities for its own benefit and at the same time serve society by developing and providing improved computers

Society may well need to change its directions, goals and values but that does not necessarily imply an abandonment of the need to progress or improve. And that is what opportunity seeking is about.

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Toastmasters in Bhubaneswar

(Click the poster above for details)

Toastmasters now in Bhubaneswar.
“Boy, do people look at their watches when you’re speaking? Or worse, do they start shaking them to make certain they are still working? Have humming, hawing, and hesitation become your “graces” while speaking?” Well then…….

A Toastmasters Club could just be your solution!! After all, even the lion needs the “roar”! Toastmasters will not only give you the “roar”, but we at times suggest the lion the right places to use his claws as well!

A Toastmasters meeting is a learn-by-doing session! Participants practice their speaking and leadership skills in a friendly supportive atmosphere. Typically, a club has 20-30 members who meet weekly to practice public speaking techniques. Members are given responsibilities and asked to lead - no lectures here! Further details are available at www.toastmasters.org or the wiki article here.

So pals, for better speaking, thinking and listening skills, check out our Bhubaneswar Toastmasters Club. You can attend as a guest and observe how we learn to communicate effectively in a fun-filled, supportive environment.

We’ll be holding the launch session of Bhubaneswar Toastmasters on the16th of Aug '09, Sunday and if you are interested, we would request you to fill in your details in the form here. (It just takes a minute!)
Time : 4-7 PM. Guests are advised to be there 15mins in advance to register
with a session fees of Rs.30 only.
Venue : RoboticWares Pvt Ltd
N4/F25, IRC Village
Near I.D Market
Bhubaneswar - 15

For further details visit our blog here and if you have any queries, then we’re just a call away at the numbers given below.
We sincerely wish your reply would be in the affirmative.

Best Regards,
Preeti Pooja
Core-Team
Bhubaneswar Toastmasters
9853878546, 9853856918,9437933035
bbsrtm@gmail.com

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When Sex is everywhere!

I was 12 am, dead of night. I was reading through my daily subscription of dialy-writing-tips on the Internet; today it was on shibboleths. I was intently absorbing the lessons slowly scrolling down the page, when precisely at that moment, my attention was distracted by this barely clad model ogling overtly at me. Mind you, the site I was reading through had no tangential relation to porn with any stretch of imagination.(You may click the pic above if you want to investigate) What does it do to the libido of a young man at the dead of the night, who is trying to study?.(Ok, though this is not funny, you may laugh) Sex is being push marketed into my mind uninvited, unwarranted, brutally, scathingly.

I don't want to project a holier than thou image of myself, but whoever gave them the right to barge into my circle of influence at the most inopportune moment.

I know Internet is littered with porn and is a huge industry in itself. All efforts to curb this menace has gone futile.. But I thought it was humans who created Internet!

What I am concerned is that this phenomenon is brutal and stark. We have allowed ourselves to become slaves of technology. Today, it’s technology that is dictating our culture. It has taken us at ransom— and a costly one at that.

I fear of tomorrow. I fear of raising my children tomorrow.

I know the advocates of the doctrine of free will, the so called ‘libertarians’ would argue that culture historically has kept evolving; and no single country/community can claim to be a custodian of it. "And if this is the way it has to evolve, so be it.", they would say.

But my point is, are we evolving by choice, or technology is thrusting this evolution on us.

When nudity is distributed all over with gay abandon, the threshold acceptance of it comes down each passing day. I remember when I was way too little, a woman’s picture even with an inkling of cleavage shown, would lower down my eyes in shame. Now bikini clad figures are freely offered early morning at my door step as a supplementary to the morning newspapers. And children of today are being fed with this daily fodder; for them their threshold is already too low. Nothing seems offensive to them today.

My best friend in UK who is married, is scared to raise his kid there. He told me that “the culture there is really bad” and he wouldn’t want his kid to get exposed to that culture. He wanted to gift his children an Indian upbringing. I told him India today is no better—even if we are not as worse, we are reaching there very fast, and technology is helping us. We have allowed it to barge into our bedrooms even when our doors are safely locked; it is through our connected computer screens. It is too naive for us to say that Indian kids are protected. No one is. The world is indeed flattened. Internet has broken that barrier. Our culture is fast evolving.

I have had umpteen discussions with colleagues and friends and I sense that helplessness with everyone. I feel we are only meek spectators to our own fate. Our kids are growing too fast too soon.

Look at some of the young reality shows running on TV. The MTV fed pre-pubescent youth appear on TV, sporting ultra low waist hip hugging jeans. An entire nation of youngsters is hooked to watch them; aghastly there are fan clubs for these dumb witted youngsters, who find their lives ambitions fulfilled here. They are becoming role models of todays youth. They flash their individuality by projecting ‘liberal’ views on some ‘cool’ topics to discuss: one-night stands, live-in relationships, and homosexuality; when their own sexuality is still underdeveloped.

I have been out of school for 10 years now and didn’t know how the children of today talk and think. But I got a taste of truth, when I joined a part time mass comm college where many in my class were just intermediate. I observed them talk. Pretty looking girls have no qualms whatsoever in bitching each other while talking. Punctuating your sentences with expletives is considered cool and is fast catching up.

They say, man can live without food for a week; without hope, not even a second. I want to hope for an honorable future, a glorious one for my children. I hope it is not all that bad as it seems. And that hope will keep me sane enough to survive.

Comments are welcome. Thank you.

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Sententionary

Are you passionate about English language?; do certain magical web of words weave music to your ears?; do you often pause, admire, reflect, and relish such vivid orchestration of words you stumble upon?

Well, I do. I am not a poet, nor have I got the acumen to appreciate poems, but I drool over a well framed English construct--to an extent that I pick and write it down in my diary. I have been having this habit on and off since I was in my 12th class.

My old diary is littered with such nuggets of precious jewels. My most luxuriating moments are when I flip through the worn down pages of the diary, and absorb myself to the collections, sipping them like old wine..

Back then I didn't know how to categorize them. So, I named my collection as Sententionary; just as dictionary stands for treasure of words, Sententionary for me is a collection of English sentences.

So, those of you who share even an inkling of a similar passion, I am letting the treasure chest of my diary open.

It also serves good to those who are lazy to pick books and read, yet have the love for language. So, through this, you get you get your dosage of quality English usages in little bursts.

I will be tweeting them regularly through my twitter id. You can follow the tweets at :

http://twitter.com/raviwriter

I will append my tweets with: Sententionary.

Let me give you some teasers:

• His integrity was as unyielding as granite.
• She tried to pull her mouth into a proper expression of sympathy.
  

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Writing therapy

(This is a picture of a small room in a village 9000 ft above sea in the Himalayas, where I was holed up without electricity, alone, sick and sad, yet found a reason to write)

It is 11:00 pm at night— not my usual sleeping hour. I sleep at around 2 am in the morning usually. But today, I was tired. It had been a long and stressful day. The previous night too I had stayed back late at office. So, a strong urge to retire to bed had set on me. I obliged. But while you can force your body to rest, you don’t wield the same authority over your thoughts. They will play according to their own will. And they did, deluging my little mind from all directions. Half an hour of shuffling and shifting on the bed was enough for me to get up. I was conscious of some strong thoughts and emotions passing by my mind, as if some flood gates had opened.

I hopped out of the bed and grabbed my pen and a paper. An hour late, I observed my mind was mellifluously calm.

What happened? How did an agitated mind in an overworked body, could find solace in this dumb act of writing? Is there any connection of the act of writing with the mind? Let me explore through my experiences.

Writing according to me is an engaging form of intrapersonal communication. It’s better than meditation, because unlike meditation, where your thoughts wander, writing organizes your thoughts. Your thoughts are given discreet shape to form of letters and words. They are there for you to see as they are in front of you. On the other hand, when you think blankly, your thoughts are ethereal, wandering clusters of ideas.

As you write, these floating thoughts are dragged and grounded down to the paper. In due course, your minds gets uncluttered of these random thoughts. You see them neatly put down on paper. You feel lighter. You feel relieved. This was my take on instant writing therapy.

Let me now talk about writing on the long run—as a gradual habit. Does this help you in any way? And my answer is a resounding yes. I am in my fifth year of writing (blogging). All these years I have been a fitful writer, writing according to my whims and fancies. Days would pass by without writing and suddenly when the moment arrives, I would find myself writing through the night till the dawn would break. But if I draw from my experience and prod over it, I would conclude that:

• Growth as a person: One grows as a person as one writes. All the self talk and dialog that goes in the mind, as you write, shapes you and hones you to become a better individual.
• Knowing yourself: Second best thing about writing is that it helps you know yourself better. Trust me on this. You learn to know yourself. Just as a mirror shows you your physical self, writing shows you your soul. You get aware of your deeper secrets. You realize how much of you is a fake; and how much of it is genuine. And that realization again helps in your personal growth.
• Wings to imagination: Third best thing that writing helps is it bolsters you imagination. You become creative and it brings out the best that is it in you. You begin to express your thoughts better. A constant rigmarole of writing unclogs all sediments of inexpression in your mind. Your mind stays oiled . You become your most refined self—self that God meant you to be.

I had written about the benefits of blogging twice before; one was when I completed my 100^th post and one was when I shared my thoughts on what lessons blogging had taught me.

• http://ravikumarwrites.blogspot.com/2008/02/my-100th-post-hurrah.html
• http://ravikumarwrites.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-has-my-little-stint-with-blogging.html

Note: As I finish this post, the watch on the table reads 3:45 am. Have a good day. Good night. :)

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2009: Year of Creativity

This post comes late by six months. Last year, I consciously made a decision to embrace unpredictability in my life; to bring in more color and variety to an otherwise mundane existence. So, I started working on an agenda. An agenda that would help me drive this initiative. After much soul searching, I decided that I would assign a theme to each coming year and strive to inculcate the theme in anything and everything I do.

For 2009, I assigned, “Creativity” as the theme for the year. Though I am not very happy with the commitment levels adhering to this theme, I am glad to have a few successes though. Let me share a few of them:

• Starting the GLAD service: GLAD stands for Grammar Lessons a Day. The idea that cropped up in my mind to share simple grammar lessons with my colleagues, one lesson a day. Creative evaluation: Other than the idea of starting a daily grammar service being creative, the coining of the service as GLAD is more creative indeed.
  
  
• My icebreaker speech: By breaking the mould of a regular icebreaker speech in Toastmasters, bringing in humor was another creative thing to do. Have a look at the speech and let me know what you feel.
  Creative evaluation: I think the idea of narrating incidents in different timezones was very dramatic and creative. I am proud I accomplished it. And I won many prizes for the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OI3346wh_0

• Hosting annual event: I hosted the annual event at Bhavans College of Communication all by myself. This was my first attempt to stage a show in front of a live audience. When the audience laughs at your jokes, you know you have done a good job.





• Invented some original jokes: In past few months. Nothing is more endearing that devising your own joke good enough to draw chuckles from an attentive audience. Here they go: Joke 1:"It was introducing a pretty looking girl in our club who was the evaluator for a speech.
  I said, "The next evaluator is a model. ( A brief pause. Very important). I mean a role model. (Audience laughed). She is a role model for all her club members as she brings in all her roles lot of creativity and enthusiasm etc etc" Joke 2: "A husband once introduces her wife to someone, "Meet my wife. She is the pillar of my life." And then in hushed voice in his ears, "Actually a caterpillar. She has been eating into my life" " Joke 3: "Sorry I haven't prepared the speech today. I am speechless. "
  
  
• The idea of assigning themes to year in itself is a figment of creativity.
  
  I am still not happy because I know I didn’t pursue the goal consciously. But I still have 6 months to make up for the lost time. And I know some are in the pipeline and some will surely jump out of the hat. Please watch out for this space.
  
  I am sure each of us go through purple patches of creativity. I would like you all to mention your creative outbursts that you have exhibited in your life.

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Me Inc.

I am delivering my project 3 speech this weekend. The speech title is Me, Inc. Wish me luck.

Objectives of Project 3 speech

The stated objectives for this speech project revolve around being focused and precise:

• Select a speech topic and determine its general and specific purposes.


• Organize the speech in a manner that best achieves those purposes.


• Ensure the beginning, body, and conclusion reinforce the purposes.


• Project sincerity and conviction and control any nervousness you may feel.


• Strive not to use notes

Time allotted: 5 to 7 minutes

Me, Inc.

Miami sunglasses, Govani blazer, Lee T shirt, Levis jeans, Leecooper shoes.
Don’t I seem like a walking billboard carrying a dozen odd brands on my back. But not my fault?

Most of us are brand obsessed. You have your own loyalties towards brands that you are fond of?

And which amongst it is the most important brand for u?

Answer: suppose Levis.

Wrong! The most important brand for you is YOU. And it holds true for each and every individual present in the room. You are your most important brand.

Today I am gonna talk about this very brand called YOU.

Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business that we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of self branding.
Most of us here would be working for a company. Some would be self employed. But nevertheless, you all hold positions at various heights of your career ladder.

But lets forget your positions for a minute. You are not a Sr Tech Lead at Satyam, you are not a Human Resource at IBM, you are not a Sr Training Consultant at Tvarita.

These designations are transient. You will not belong to a company for life. And your affiliation to a function is not forever. You are not defined by your job title. Your identity is not restricted to a job description. There is more to you than that.And I will tell you who you are.

You are the CEO of your own company called Me Inc.
And your joint role is the Head Marketing Manager of the brand called YOU.

It is as simple. And it is tortuously difficult.

You are every bit a brand as much as Nike, Coke or Pepsi. Ridiculous isn't it? Pepsi and me. Why not? Who said brands can only be a product and not you?

To start thinking yourself as a brand, ask yourself the same questions that the brand manager at Nike, Coke or Pepsi asks themselves.

What is the USP of my product? How is my product unique and different than others? How is the brand you unique and different than other people around you.

Give yourself the 15 word challenge. Write what defines you. What is unique about u? And why do you sell?

Read it aloud. Does it pump you up? Does it excite you? If not, how can it appeal to a prospective client?

If not, then you have got a big problem.

And its time to give yourself a serious thought on how to become a brand that you have always wanted to become.

Do the same feature benefit comparison that corporate biggies do for their brands. You all know Starbucks right? It’s the largest coffee chain in the world. Many books have been written about the brand called Starbucks. It turned out that their USP or the most dominant feature was the personalized service that it lavishes on every customer.
Think wat is your dominant feature.

Is brand Vivek known for delivering work on time, every time? Is brand Swathi known to complete her projects within allotted resources? Is brand Srinath known to be the “Go To” guy in his team, where team members approach him for all technical queries. Ask yourself what is it that you can unabashedly brag about and shamelessly take credit for.


How do I market?

Now you worked on your dominant feature. You added requisite skill. You think u r unique. The product is ready… But like any other brand, the product YOU needs to be marketed. So how do you market the brand YOU?

There is no truck or lorry that carries this product from production to market.But the good news is the brand you is its self moving. Meets different people every moving hour either face to face, or telephone or through messages. And in each of these occasions it exhibits its dominant features. Every time this brand talks on phone, the voice on the other side registers these traits: confidence , enthusiasm. Everytime the brand sends a mail, the receiver observes the power of purpose in the content.

In short everything that this brand does, it leaves that imprint, that stamp, that signature that touch of yours that is unmistakably unique. Its like your moms food. You can make it out from a distance even when people around you are cooking.

Let me give u an example, the manager in my company keep a bowl of toffees at his desk. Anyone who passes by him picks a toffee. Anyone who drops by for some work picks a toffee before leaving. I think this is a very “sweet” thing to do. The other day I found a bunch of printed “Thank You” cards at his desk. I asked him and he said, we often tend to forget thanking people around u when they are of help. And this is my way of thanking them by leaving a note behind the card.

So you see its not the big things that adds brand value. It is such little things that can add to your brand.

Having said that, let me also say that personal branding is not just about sprucing yourself up with cosmetic additions. It finally boils down to who you are at your core authentic self. Your personal brand emerges from the search for your identity and meaning.

Hope you will take good care of your company, Me, Inc.
Thank you.

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Sanskara(Character): As defined by Vivekananda

“If you have lost your wealth, you have lost nothing; if you have lost your health, you have lost something; if you have lost your character, you have lost everything.”-

Swami Vivekananda

It has been a sort of positive revelation for me in my personal life to have read "Secret of Work" by Swami Vivekananda. Though not the whole chapter, but the paragraph where he explains how a character is shaped in a man consciously or unconsciously. I strongly agree to his logic and the simplicity with which he explains would make sense even to tiny tots .

Well, I attempt to describe in my own way what he meant by Sanskara and how it is built in a man. I would recommend everyone to read the chapter "The Secret of Work" (available on Internet too).

Swami Vivekananda explains Samskara (Character) by comparing mind to a lake. Similar to a lake, every ripple, every wave that rises in the mind, when it subsides, does not die out entirely, but leaves a mark and a future possibility of that wave coming out again. This mark, with the possibility of the wave reappearing is called Samskara. According to Vivekananda, every work that we do, every movement of the body, every thought that we think, leaves such an impression on the mind, and even such impressions are not obvious on the surface, they are sufficiently strong to work beneath the surface, subconsciously.

"What we are every moment is determined by the sum total of these impressions on the mind."

What I am just at this moment is the effect of the sum total of all the impressions of my past life. This is really what is meant by character; each man's character is determined by the sum total of these impressions. If good impressions prevail, the character becomes good; if bad, it becomes bad. If a man continuously hears bad words, thinks bad thoughts, does bad actions, his mind will be full of bad impressions; and they will influence his thought and work without his being conscious of the fact. In fact, these bad impressions are always working, and their resultant must be evil, and that man will be a bad man; he cannot help it. The sum total of these impressions in him will create the strong motive power for doing bad actions. He will be like a machine in the hand of his impressions, and they will force him to do evil. Similarly, if a man thinks good thoughts and does good works, the sum total of these impressions will be good; and they, in a similar manner, will force him to do good even in spite of himself. When a man has done so much good work and thought so many good thoughts that there is an irresistible tendency in him to do good, in spite of himself and even if he wishes to do evil, his mind, as the sum total of his tendencies, will not allow him to do so; the tendencies will turn him back; he is completely under the influence of the good tendencies. When such is the case, a man's good character is said to be established.

I firmly believe in the above mentioned logic. Being a human, we will have moments when we think wrong thoughts, when we get into wrong company, wrong environment. But its our duty to stay conscious of our thoughts and immediately replace them with good thoughts. That way you will help build positive character.

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Pyramid of Success: John Wooden (Part II)

John Wooden may have created the Pyramid of Success 60 years ago, but sinking yourself into it, you would find its relevance is beyond time or age. The relevance is not just in sports, but to all fields in life. He is 98 today and listening him speak fills me with veneration and deep admiration. Wooden’s famous philosophy through the Pyramid of success is a guiding force to many young lives today.

The Pyramid depicts 15 habits that John devised with experience through daily basketball practice. The cornerstones of the pyramid is "industriousness," then "friendship, loyalty, cooperation, and enthusiasm;" in short, the foundation of the Pyramid is the knowledge that life, like basketball, is a team game. "The main ingredient in stardom," Mr. Wooden told his players, "is the rest of the team.". The first layer above the foundation is Mr John’s stress on mental powers that focuses on “self control, alertness, initiative, and intentness” With 15 years of work put down in framing the pyramid, John though put industriousness and enthusiasm as cornerstone, skill was placed at the heart. After the mental and physical comes the spiritual row of "poise and confidence." This row can be thought of as Mr. Wooden's definition of success: peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.

John’s seven point creed, given to him by his father after his graduation:
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Be true to yourself.

Make each day your masterpiece.

Help others.

Drink deeply from good books, especially the Bible.

Make friendship a fine art.

Build a shelter against a rainy day.

Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.

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On Success: John Wooden (Part I)

I have been pining for affirmation, for assurance from someone who would provide me the true definition of success and what is it to have succeeded. The beauty of life is that in its due course, it presents you epiphanies in seemingly ordinary moments. Moments that could be inconspicuously small, yet provide you with wisdom of a lifetime. One such moment I would ascribe to was today, while I was watching John Wooden speak at TED. John Wooden speaks about the difference between winning and success, succinctly in his 17 minutes talk.

In this post I would try to distill his thoughts in my own modest way. First a few words about the living legend.

Born in 1910, Coach John Wooden is the first person to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame both as a player and coach, while ESPN ranks him as the greatest coach of all time, across all sports. In his 40 years at UCLA, he has mentored legends such as Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. His career has been illustrious to say the least, and he has created a model, the Pyramid of Success, and authored several books to impart his insight on achievement to others.

The initial words that got me hooked to this man were this:

"Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self- satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable" -John Wooden.

This was so illuminating, so invigorating to the mind. Its profound simplicity hits you on your face and brings your whole pursuit of success to perspective. He derives this definition after his tryst with his moment of epiphany, which he narrates in his talk. During his early years as an English teacher, he was disappointed and delusioned when the parents of his students expected their kids to get an A or B, and thought C was ok for neighbour’s children, because the neighbours’ children were all average. This made no sense to him because for him, God in his infinite wisdom never created everyonel equal, in intelligence, size or appearance.

And so in pursuit of being a teacher where a student is not judged by higher marks in a subject or more points in an athletic contest, he came up with his own definition. He says, if you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable of and try to improve the situation that exists for you, that is success. And no one else can judge that other than you. He also compares it with character and reputation.

“Reputation is what you are perceived to be and character is what you really are. And character is much more important than what you are perceived to be. You hope both are good, but it’s not necessary to be the same. You should never try to be better than someone else. Always learn from others. Never cease trying to be the best you could because that is in your control. If you are too engrossed and involved and concerned in things that aren’t in your control, it will adversely effect the things over which you have control.”

The words ring like chiming bells and though we seem to know most of these facets of worldly wisdom, it needs reaffirmation from men of his stature .

Contd…(John Wooden’s pyramid of success)

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Past Imperfect. Present Tense

I will be delivering my first project speech at Hyderabad Toastmasters Club tomorrow. This is the speech!

Update: I delivered the speech. And the audience laughed. To an extent that inspite of many senior speakers, I was nominated the best speaker for the day. :)
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Please be rest assured. I am not going to give you grammar lessons today. Past Imperfect. Present Tense in short epitomizes my life.
For the Icebreaker session, I pondered if I have anything worthwhile in my life to share. Since, I have been a damp squib all through my life.
But before that let me give you glimpses of a confused yet kaleidoscopic growing up years.

So, after being tired a doing somersaults for 9 months in my mothers womb I decided that its time to come out and set the world on fire. 21st October 1981, a momentous day in world history. A star is born. Aah not star. Tubelight would be more appropriate. It sputtered, it clicked and it did glow sometimes.
But the moment I am pulled out I find myself held by an ugly looking doctor with big eyes, bigger spectacles and bushy eyebrow. One look at him and I was so shocked that I couldn't speak for the next two years.

Fast forward 8 years hence, long after I had begun talking. Class 5, Sec E, DAV Public School, Bhubaneswar. Time is 11:30 am. The lunch bell rings. I open my bag, get hold of my tiffin box, rush to the dustbin, empty my tiffin box in the dustbin and rush down the stairs on to the field. Following me are other classmates running . And we reach the end of the field, below that banyan tree . The boys from Section B are already there. My name is called and from the other section the other boy's name too. We both circled by the noisy crowd. For the next 20 minutes follows kicks and boxes, and rolling in ground. 20 minutes later I stand up with panting and puffin in soiled clothes, bruises on my knee and elbow, but nevertheless a triumphant smile on my face and adulation from boys of my section. That was the fight club in my school.

Fast forward 4 years hence. Class 9 Section D. corridor of DAV Public school. A group of girls coming from the opposite end. The moment I see them, I freeze. I sense I am the only guy there. I get the urge to turn back and walk the other way. But I dont. I look down and walk shakily and crossing the giggling girls never ever raising my head. The confident and mischievous young lil boy of class 5 inexplicably grows to become a shy, bumbling, and awkward lad who cant see a girl eye to eye.


Fast forward 2004. Scene Barista. A spanky new mall in Gurgaon. Sipping coffee along with his first date. The awkward guy of class 9th had learnt to ask a girl out. Thanks to the outgoing girls in call the centers of Gurgaon.
That pretty much sums up my external metamorphosis.

But lemme share some deeper aspects of my personality.
A below average student all my life, a real worry for my parents if I could at all make a life out of myself. I never won an award in school. Did not have any achievements to boast of. But there was one thing me that I am always proud of myself. I always made my presence felt wherever I went.

I would occasionally show sparks of brilliance, but never made my mark. Just as a tubelight

During my engineering days, I developed a fancy towards the English language. In the third year, I along with a few junior friends formed a youth magazine, AKANKSHA, sub titled Dreams Drive Us.

It was here that I learnt a real skill. But then I had mastered the art of converting proud moments into moments of great embarrassments. I was called up on stage to deliver a speech on the magazine unveiling ceremony. I climbed up with pride swelling my chest and faced the audience. The 100 odd crowd multiplied by two number of eyes staring at me. I was frozen. Blank. I mumbled, I muttered and hardly spoke. Just like a tubelight.

Fast forward 6 years hence, and my greatest fear of facing an audience is conquered. Thanks to Toastmasters.

I do a lot of things in my regular life. Since I want to compensate for all the shy years in college, I do just about anything shamelessly. I read good books, as they provide me solace from the madding world outside. I walked on the ramp in a fashion show in my company. I shook a leg in a choreographed dance last year in Bangalore. I travelled alone to the Himalayas and surrendered myself to the mountains for 15 days this September. My life is a canvas, I just want to keep filling colors of all sorts.

Well achievement or no achievement. Success or no success. I do not care. I just know one thing, that I want to lead a creative life.

I heard someone say, that when you die, your entire life flashes before your eyes. Make it worth watching.
I have been trying to do that lately.

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