Struggle

Definitions of ‘Struggle’ are various. I have picked the 4 best that I liked:

1. to make strenuous or violent efforts in the face of difficulties or opposition
2. to contend resolutely with a task, problem, etc.; strive: to struggle for existence.
3. to make (one's way) with violent effort.
4. a task or goal requiring much effort to accomplish or achieve.

Lets face it. Life, for most of us, is a struggle. Existence doesn’t come easy unless you had a huge grant from a dad or a grand dad who left you a fortune or you married a spouse with a bulging wallet.

Every walk in our life is a struggle whether we realize it or not. As stated in one of my earlier blogs, during the time, we might not realize it as ‘struggling’, but later we definitely would if the walk of life eases. Its like climbing a mountain, panting and puffing, and once you reach the top, you look down and wonder ‘How the hell did I climb that?!!’

But, given a ‘struggling situation’ and a ‘non struggling situation’, I confess I would rather opt for the latter. I mean, really, why bother the panting and puffing?! Take it easy, chap, is what I would say to myself! But that’s being me.

However, a little introspection leads to the conclusion that it’s the sum total of struggle in life that actually enriches one’s life. Yes, it’s the hard way but it’s the best way and it’s the way a life ought to be led. It’s the way where the true knowledge exists.

To emphasise the point in a rather technical manner, ask a man to code a software program on a PC enabled with all the IDEs and softwares (like Visual Studio, Eclipse, Net beans, etc), he just right clicks and boom! Everything is done. But ask the same thing to be done on a PC with no IDE on it, the modern day developer stands confused because, the basics are missing. Its like learning to make sentences without knowing the alphabet. So, the beauty of it all is somewhere lost in translation.

Yes, the newer way is faster, advanced and highly efficient but at the same time, a huge amount of knowledge is never understood and learnt. By not learning, by not allowing to learn, the mindset adjusts to ‘Right click’ rather than learn the hard way.

To give a more generic instance, getting a first pay packet of five digits is the order of the day now. However, if one has struggled through the times, if one has earned one’s initial bread by really struggling, one can appreciate the value of money as compared to a person who had a lot of dough as his first salary. Similarly, the joy of coding from a blank textpad to a complete program is completely and enormously different from coding using an IDE or a software which does half your job.

Anyways, that was just a thought. That’s the thought I get when I think about my peers struggling to do their Masters, struggling to do their Post-Grads, struggling to get into an MNC. That’s the thought that I get when I think about climbing a mountain, about doing a hard trek, about doing tougher projects, about spending more time in office, etc. One always remembers the night-outs during studies or the night-outs spent in office rather than the ‘just-another-day-in-college’ or the routine 9 to 6 days in office respectively, right? Yes, we are all struggling, in one way or the other.

And, the best part is, its worth the experience. Its definitely worth the experience because it is the struggle that enriches one’s experiences.

So struggle more and struggle harder…

:-)

PS: Of course, draw a line somewhere!! One shouldnt overdo anything, right?!! :-)

Thought for the day

Why is the grass so damn greener on the other side?!!

:-(

The Session That Was

So I attended this session today, solely because I was asked to and I had no intention of going. But it was nice, as it always is post-session, to have attended a course on soft skills. It isn’t always correct what is taught and it is never so if it is pure theory based on books but the facilitator in today’s session was top-notch. She emphasized that same point and in fact even conceded that the session was more for interaction and mind-set preparation rather than strict Dos and Donts. So there was a lot of stories told about true experiences that people had faced and pondering about the same and very very few slides that made the training very interesting! Of course, she resembled a very dear old friend of mine and I won the game first up which she asked us to play to rather kind of break the ice and the two factors really helped setting the afternoon in high spirits!

Couple of the things that she said made me ponder:

“Data shows that over 60% of the time, it is the ‘environment’ and ‘what others think’ is what stops a person from saying out what he truly wishes to say.”

Well, if that was interesting, then, at the end, she said this:

“Clarity and in-depth knowledge of the topic in question makes a man so powerful that he doesn’t care a damn to either ‘environment’ or ‘others’ and brings about an attitude of ‘What do I care? I have nothing to lose!’ and hence enables him to say what he truly wants to say.”

Hmmm. Very interesting…

PS: On a side note, I was the oldest member in the whole classroom. I did not expect this so early!! :-(

Eating Out...

Sunday: Upahara Sagar (Fast Food)
Monday: Ragoos (Continental)
Tuesday: Vidyarthi Bhavan (Dosa and Vada)
Wednesday: Wedding Reception (Multi-Cuisine)
Thursday: Home Sweet Home (South Indian)
Friday: Home Sweet Home (South Indian)
Saturday: Canopy (Multi-Cuisine)
Sunday: Anna Kuteera (North Indian / South Indian)

Moment of the day

A lush green garden...
A robust water fountain in the middle of it...
A huge multi-storeyed building on the background that extends to the night sky...
Orion right on top of the building...

And to top it all,
My Valentine beside me...

:-)

Certificate of Recognition

Is it really now? A Certificate of Recognition.

In the IT sector, it is hard to distinguish if an appreciation is really meant to recognise the effort put in or if it is just a device used as a motivating factor to keep going and going. Especially if the appreciation goes from one person to another, quarter-on-quarter in a round-robin basis. Or perhaps both.

Well, I guess I should be happy.

Thought for the day

Excerpt from a blog by Ashok Vemmuri (my boss's boss's boss's...boss!), who is attending World Economic Forum in Davos:

In addition to collaboration, there was a strong theme running through today’s discussions that we need to go back to basics. The world has over-complicated itself; we need to scale back and slow everything down so that the world can be stabilized again. This isn’t just for the banking industry, but also organizational management, and the relationship between the state and the private sector.

The world has over-complicated itself. This line made me chuckle. Its what I always keep thinking! Its so true! Masanobu Fukuoka always said 'How about not doing this? How about not doing that?' We indeed have over-complicated our lives...

Power of a mole!

In a casual discussion with relatives today, my aunt mentioned that if a person has a mole on his feet, he tends to travel a lot. Instinctively, I looked down at my feet.

I did not have just one mole. I had one mole on my left foot and one mole on my right foot! No wonder I like to travel so much!!

Boinks!!

V-Day Wedding?

Sri Rama Sene group, recently infamous for their beating of young girls in a Mangalore pub for following Western Culture, are once again in the news. SRS has decided to arrange marriage between dating couples on V-Day. Guys and gals exhibiting public display of affection on Valentine's Day will be caught by SRS team and taken to a sub-registrar's office to solemnize the marriage.

But then, I thought, Feb 14th is a second Saturday! All Government offices, including sub-registrar's offices will be closed on Feb 14th!

:-)

I guess me and Gouri just lost a golden chance to get freely married a second time in less than a year...

:-)

0730 hrs

As I was waiting for my company bus today at 0730 hrs,
Amidst the myriad of vehicles plying about,
Some school vans, some college vans, some company vehicles,
Some autorickshaws, some public buses,

And amidst people at various stages of getting ready for the day,
Some returning from morning walk, some starting off,
Some dropping children to school, some heading to office,
Some getting milk from the shop, some fuelling up their vehicles,

I had this random thought:

How many people would be awake, up and about by 0730 hrs?!

2009 Australian Open Tennis Championship

....aaaaah. It really hurts to see a champion crying...
But then, he is no longer a champion...

And, the reason, perhaps, he has lost the championship...
...is because he cries...

Phrase of the day

Higher up the ladder one climbs
The more one becomes a Devil's Advocate.

Lucky?

How lucky can one get...
How unlucky can one get...

Thought for the day

I was this close to freedom...

:-(

Quote of the day

"Health can buy Wealth;
But Wealth cannot buy Health"

Observed at Pulse Diagnostics after I had been there for Total Wellness Check c/o Artha.
On a side note, I am Totally Well :-)
Apart from the 76, of course :-(

"First Time In Life" of the day

* Booked Tatkal ticket on IRCTC.

* Blew air bubbles on road from balcony using soapy water. Courtesy: Wife.

:)

Me and Bargaining!

I aint the type to bargain during shopping with street vendors. I only do it sometimes - half-heartedly and hence unsuccessfully - if I am asked to do so by parents. My idea is that: not much money is given to charity or the needy deliberately, and this way of 'not-bargaining' during shopping with street vendors would, if not wholly, at least to an extent, act as an alternate for charity. After all, its a matter of few Rupees.

So I was out there on the streets today trying to shop something for Rs 50, asked by parents over phone to get the value down to Rs 40. So when the shop keeper said "50", I said simply, without even adding meaning to it, purely on the orders of the parents, "Make it 40" and gave him a 100 Rupee note.

I had every intention to give Rs 50 in any case if the shopkeeper so much as even whined a little. I mean thats what I expected, dont we all? When customer bargains, the shopkeeper whines and says how much prices have increased and how helpless he is and blah-blah.

On the contrary, to my statement of "Make it 40", the shopkeeper blinked back at me, put on a face of incredulity and demanded "Why?"

Inwardly, I laughed out loud! No one had asked me this ever before! Why would one bargain?! Anyway, I mumbled something about its value being 40 or something - again, not at all putting feeling into what I was saying - and took my leave, taking back with me the change of Rs 50 which the shopkeeper had returned...

:)

And the elevator moved on its own...

There is something about 'things happening on their own without my intervention' that gives me a great kick!

Such as being on a bicycle on a slopy road when I do not have to pedal...
Such as enjoying the warmth of a hot water bath coming from a solar heater and not due to the electric geyser that I had to switch on...
Such as door opening on its own as I near it...

One such desire I had since a very long time was :
1. to stand in front of an elevator
2. elevator doors to open on its own
3. I enter the unmanned elevator
4. elevator to move on its own to the floor I want it to go
5. elevator to reach the desired floor and open the doors on its own
6. and I get off the elevator
As can be seen, I get from one floor to another without so much as even a press of a button. Perhaps the fact I am paranoid about carpal tunnel syndrome or perhaps this kick of 'things happening on their own', but in any case, the above desire to be fulfilled had been going on for a very long time now - almost years altogether.

And, at last, today, the desire was fulfilled!

I was at Floor 2 and I had to go to Floor 0. As I neared the elevator on Floor 2, it was coming up from Floor 0 on its own. So I just waited for the doors to open. Once it opened, I entered in and just waited there. The doors closed and for a moment, the elevator didnt move. It just stood there. Within a minute, someone at Floor 0 pressed the button and the elevator started moving down to Floor 0. Once Floor 0 was reached, I just stepped out, and finally, I had achieved my small ambition of moving from one floor to another floor in an unmanned elevator without even pressing a single button!

And I wasnt alone in this event. I had been discussing about this desire of mine to many of my friends over a period of time. This time, I was with 5 friends and persuaded them also not to press any button throughout the ordeal. It brought even more joy when they too whooped in happiness along with me as the elevator moved down towards Floor 0!

Its a very tiny thing, I know, but it gave me immense joy!

:)

Moments of the day

* The drama 'All the best' was hilariously magnificent. As were the dance sequences that followed. The setting - Infosys Amphitheatre - was exemplary. The mood was (Sankranthi) festive. The crowd was multilingual although the drama and songs were in Kannada. Suffice it to say that it was jam packed. The MC looked fabulous, and to top it all, when she threw the Dairy Milk at the audience, who would have thought that I can reach out and catch it?! Boy, that made me really a happy!

* There I am riding slowly on the new TVS Streak scooterette, making sure I do not cross 40 kmph (at least till I reach 600 kms), and what do I see but other scooters going at the same slow speed as me! In reality, they are checking the scooterette out in totality - from back to front and from right to left! Talk about advantages of being amongst the first few to own a new vehicle that just got released! Boy, it made me feel as if I was in an ad show!

Where are all the women?!

For the nth time in my life, I attended a meeting of over 20 people but with just 1 female member.

My first project had several meetings consisting of several male members but just one female member. But then, the whole team consisted of only one female member!! And today again, there was a meeting with just one female member in a room full of male associates. It made me wonder what it always make me wonder.

Either its a male dominated society or I am in a female-deprived projects' area!

In each of these meetings, I truly like the way each of these female associates respond to and articulate their thoughts and opinions clearly, albeit outnumbered in gender. Its really good to see that they do not get outweighed by the situation and feel complex about it, because, in reality, they are the ones who are really admired and respected by the male counterparts.

Question: How would I feel if I were to be in a meeting consisting of only female associates?!

:)