The merrier, the better!

There goes me- happy and contented thus far, in the end of yet another taxing yearJ. I look at myself now like never before ( J) ,to only draw the conclusion that time teaches a few painful lessons, that we have knowingly abstained or neglected from learning in the past years. Time is the most stubborn thing in the world.

The oracle PL/SQL trainer, Mr.Ramanjaneya had once told us that WE need to be the change that we desire to see in others or in our surroundings..

Was part of tons of things at office to experience the reality of that at workplace. Sold sweets and snacks at office to raise funds for poor children, organised events on team offsite day,sang the Christmas choir at office, played paint ball for the first time and contributed my bit for every single event that went past by. Now the enthusiasm shown by us fellow freshers at office seems to be getting absorbed by the senior lot J . Also, Never had i seen or felt the fun in playing secret santa for someone on Christmas and rarely had i ever seen people getting fun awards at office for being humorous , approachable , popular and most eligible bachelor/spinster. There seems to be a budding idea factory at workplace that leaves me in awe a lot many times and puts me to shame for i once preached that college life had the most fun embedded in it

10 men can complete a piece of work in 15 days and 15 women can complete the same work in 12 days. If all the 10 men and 15 women work together , in how many days will the work get completed?

Well....it’s just an apti question...Never mind the figures , sheer common sense would suggest that 10 men and 15 women working together will complete the work in half as much time as it would take separatelyJ.So share your happiness and care for others at office. For you would be spending alarmingly more time of your life at your office with colleagues than your family.

Food for thought:

Sometimes, there are these inferences that you can draw from people’s faces about their nature , intentions and behaviour. These inferences apparently are never wrong. And when people present a feigned appearance trying to put on a different image of themselves , nothing can be half as fun as disabusing them in public or asking the wrong questions to them at the right place. Try itJ

New year is around the corner !!! I wish that everyone be gifted with a prosperous new year and a happy christmas!!

Stay warmJ

Memory Cells

It was the farewell day for the E&C department, final year students at College. The Head of the Department was called upon to address the gathering. He was the celebrated star of many students as he fell prey to the student’s imitation behind the scenes easily .This is one strange thing about humans that we start liking people whom we imitate the most. Beaming with a huge smile, he strode to the mike accompanied by the roar and cheers that the students gave in their excitement.

He started his speech praising our batch as the most priced batch for beating the placement records at college. He carried forward the speech with dignity and concluded soon enough to our surprise with a tinge of emotion. He probably thought, that he had already given enough lecture in classes that he handled and realised we were on the mood for party .He concluded saying departure is imminent now and he wished us all the best for our future. True, people end up saying philosophical stuff, sometimes when they get emotional.

Just four months have passed after that day and there is so much change in life.In the same bus stop where i used to catch my college bus, i now board the office cab. Every time i see that yellow bus with the name of my college on it, a fresh memory comes back and i start sulking about the comforts of college life. The small group of friends , favourite lecturers, the things that we endured for the final year project , everything shines on my mind along with the morning rays.

And now i realise that People are indeed like BLUETOOTH, if you let them move far from you, they find new devices( i received this insightful sms forward a few days back). The only reason for this is that you move far away from the minds of people emotionally as well, when you are separated by distance. But that’s the way of life.Life is long for sure, but it bloody moves so fast!

Behind the Veil..

Three months of service at an IT company.... and the experience has been a confusing trivia, now that i find it difficult to comprehend and even express how it feels. It’s a strange world out there.. The transition termed “Campus to Corporate” is probably well known in the IT world. Whatever it means implicitly, it puts truck loads of responsibility on a fresher, who once was a carefree student.

If you are a novice, you have to smile like a ditz to improve your chance of acceptance and keep smiling that way until your facial muscles hurt. You can only stop with the approval from your team lead or project manager. Else, i have seen cases where it is escalated as an attitude problem!

In India, free advice is imminent when you just give inkling to the advising party that your ears have access to a few extra GBs of storage space. But for some reason, the IT world doesn’t seem like India. Maybe that is because most of the IT people work for foreign clients or on outsourced projects and are influenced so much that the Indian genes are dwindling away. Here you don’t get free advice, you earn it. Most of it is earned through subservience and flattery. That advice could also come as guidance for the work at hand which sometimes is crucial. There are people who love themselves and people who perjure themselves and yet with poise and grandeur, the IT world continues to subsist with all its zany attributes and a variety of people.

Yes , the transition has been tough, but i hope it’s after effects are pleasant and in perfect alignment with my goal. Transitions are bitter and comfort zones are sweeter. But all that is left to say about life is that “IT GOES ON...”

The song from ” Udaan” has proven inspirational since a very long time ........

"Subah ki Kirano ko rokein jo salaakhein hai kahan

Jo khayalon pe pehre daale woh aankhein hai kahan

Par khulne ki deri hai parinde ud ke choo lenge Aasman aasman aasman"

(Where are those chains that can stop the morning rays?(there are none)

Where are such eyes that limit thoughts?

It’s only until they open their wings, birds will touch the sky!)

Pancharangi

Time spent wisely is one such great wealth which you can’t lose by theft or treachery. But it is wise not to meddle with and ponder over time – coz it’s a complex thing. So “just relax and move on” is my epithet to deal with time. And the “relax” part is mostly bagged by the movies that I watch and comprehend to madly search meaning in them.

My attitude towards new Kannada movies had changed long ago when every movie that released came out with pin to pin identical story lines and enough weaponry display to put even the Indian army to shame. And not to mention the pathetic state of some songs which are a mere attempt to group some random rhyming words, give some beats and call it a composition. But new winds have arrived however to keep up the respect of the industry. The combination of Jayanth Kaykini’s composition and Sonu Nigham’s voice have proven to be timeless hits bagging repeat broadcasts over the fm radio.

It is my notion that people take delight in watching movies that touch their way of thinking and their life situations. Saw the movie “Pancharangi” a few days back on TV and am impressed so much that the dialogues are still ringing in my ears. Director Yograj Bhat and actor Diganth deserve a standing ovation for their outstanding work.

Simple dialogues woven with profundity of truth, a very different storyline and a flabbergasting climax are all the elements that made the ocean of my heart roar and recede several times with joy! Pancharangi( five colors) is all about adding colors to this short span of the journey called life and look for a meaning if you are keen on it.

Movies of that kind are a rare treat.

They seem to teach us a thing or two…

Lifeu ishtene! ( There is not much to life!)

PS: Go watch the movie for yourself if you have'nt done it and watch it again if you have already done it!

Unrewarded Glory

It was late afternoon yesterday. I came out from my room onto the balcony and stood there watching the wide space. The site next to our apartment building had been vacant since long until a group of homeless had occupied it and put up 13 small plastic tents. It was like a village in one single large site.

As I scanned each house and its activities, a group of small children caught my attention to absolute totality for some time. The little girl looked about a year and a half. She was chubby and had anklets around her feet. Two older girls, stood near her and took care of her. The three of them sat in one corner of the tent smiling and laughing at each other with amusement. I think their mother had just given them a handful of groundnuts. The elder girl held them carefully in her hands after giving the boy some. The little one could not be entrusted with such great a treasure for what did she know of the value of the rare treat? Each groundnut with its precious value would be handed out to the little one carefully on her palm by the elder girl. The little one would put it in her mouth with joy and a look of utter satisfaction and hold out her hand again for the next one. This struck a responsive chord in me for a huge length of time.

The elder girl was perhaps five year old and I had seen her many times carrying the little one on her waist with the responsibility much like her mother. It looked like those kids were having their happiest moment with the divide and share moment. Normally I would have expected each of them to fight for the largest share and spoil the lightness of the moment. But the elder girl fed her little sister with love and affection and only did manage to have the last ones for herself . I stood there gaping and wanting to catch more of that rare moment.

Sibling rivalry is I think very common nowadays unless I am mistaken. And mostly when the siblings belong to the male sex, then it gets more aggressive. The best example- my case. It hurts to say more about the exampleJ. Hundreds of times, there are bitter feelings due to absence of affection and presence of divide and conquer from the other end. The scene that I had witnessed made me ponder a lot on the homeless. Who says they are Poor? They are richer than most of us. In love . In Sharing and caring. Love is their greatest asset. They feast even in hunger.

Ofcourse they will be gone when the site owner gets to know about their intrusion. But the lesson that those children taught still remains..

Wherever there is money , there is greed ( and vice versa)!

Wherever there is love , there is abundance( and vice versa)!

PS:The image above is just a reference

The Mocking bi(r)d

We have all studied in school that farmers are the backbone of our nation and that agriculture is the main occupation of our country. Does that make sense anymore? That sentence should be erased out of the social studies books , lest the future generations study the wrong facts.

The vast population in Bangalore alone makes me wonder as to how is the food procured for such a massive number, when there are only few villages left in the state that practice agriculture.

Sitting in front of the computer screen and entering data, programming and software developing , managing office under the fan and air controlled rooms always win the highest bid on the job platform than laboring in the fields to grow crops. But if we believe and continue to get lured by such notions, we are in for quite a surprise.

That the price of the food commodities are sky rocketing every day is reason enough to prove the fact that we are neglecting agriculture and hence moving towards destruction of our species. Agricultural fields are gulped in greed to build industries .Builders and developers advertise with such false poise, in every form of media imaginable -about the grand villas and such domicile for megalomaniac humanity.

Albeit, it is not too late to revere the unselfish work of a farmer in the interest of feeding the nation . Research and development should happen primely in agriculture, if the nation ever dreams of existing in the future. The grand fields of software and technology are saturated already.

There is no doubt. The end of the world will dawn upon us due to lack of food. And that day is not very far. And on that day, we are left with only chatting with our friends on touch screen phones.

Amidst such rants, the mocking bird says “ Dear foolish species ,tell me one food commodity of yours, whose price is lesser than what it was ten years ago? Human population is dominant on this earth because that is the only species that can mate through all seasons. All other species mate in specific and limited seasons. Strengthen the roots of sustenance first; Progress, development and flourishing as a species will entail eventually…”

PS: Offensive language is regretted.

Flip Flop

Flip flop! That’s the word which is of paramount importance now. Technically, it is the basic constituent of “logic circuitry” in electronic and memory devices. It is a veritable human invention. A flip flop is capable to store information as zeroes and ones.

Yes, “logic circuitry”. How exalted the word is! But the revelation of its true and pertinent nature emerges when I tell you that it changes states. The above is mere technical info unless I elucidate how germane it is to the make of a human being.

We do have a massive flip flop in the six pound mass sitting between our shoulders. It has given us solutions and presented problems, made us egoistic; also show empathy ; run behind flashy stuff and sulk about it later and myriad more things.

100* flip flop= Human mind+ Memory

The human Mind is a flip flop of divine invention; has the potential to make or break its owner!

Being in deep inner conflict for quite some time and groping in darkness , I just plunged myself into the science of mind. Ofcourse! All good things materialize out of thin air on the Nth moment!

I don’t know whether I should really call it a science because it deserves much higher status. The Bhagavadgita is only familiar to us Hindus, coz we have just heard about it being mentioned by the third person somewhere, sometime. But to know it is,,, trust me the greatest privilege of being a Hindu.

I did probe into it hurriedly and some witticisms found to be pertinent about the mind thingy

यतो यतो हि निस्चरती मनः चंचलं अस्थिरम !

ततः तु नियमः तदात्मन एव वशं नयेत !!

“ Drawing back the restless and fidgety mind from all those objects after which it runs, one should repeatedly fix it on god”

ये हि संस्पर्शजा भोगाः दुखायोंय एव ते !

आद्यंत -वन्तः कौन्तेय न तेषु रमते बुधः !!

“ All the happiness and luxuries derived out from the senses are verily a source of sorrow. A wise man does not involve himself in all these pleasures”

It sounds so pleasing the first time, when it brushes over the brain. It does bring about a profound change in the outlook. It feels like these are the best impressive ways for self(mind) control and renunciation. But following ( read practicing) these is even more a harder task !

To follow it and practice it is to be verily conscious 24*7 and be a watchdog at the gate of the mind. I have faltered million times as the mind flips and flops on materialistic things and the whole pursuit sometimes is fiasco…

I now surrender…”Mental Mastery is so profound and difficult a science that it has blatantly overthrown all other sciences on this earth”

THE MIND IS AS MUCH A DAMNATION AS A BLESSING FROM GOD.

PS: In stating the above seemingly saintly aphorisms, I am aware that it’s practice takes its toll on everyone. However , it is also said that whatever you focus on grows and expands in your life