Quick workouts

20-Minute Arm Workout:

Repeat 4 times for a total of 20 minutes

1st minute: 15 push-ups2nd minute: 15 dumbbell rows3rd minute: 15 shoulder presses4th minute: 15 biceps curls5th minute: 40 seconds jumping jacks; 20 seconds of rest

20-Minute Lower Body Workout:

Repeat 5 times, resting 30 seconds between sets.

30 seconds: Squats30 seconds: Rest30 seconds: Alternating lunges30 seconds: Rest30 seconds: Kettlebell deadlifts30 seconds: Rest30 seconds: High-knees

10-Minute Core Workout:

Repeat 4 times, resting 30 seconds between sets.

1 minute: Jackknife crunches1 minute: Plank

Pressure Doesn’t Have to Turn into Stress

Pressure Doesn’t Have to Turn into Stress

Nicholas Petrie

MARCH 16, 2017

https://hbr.org/2017/03/pressure-doesnt-have-to-turn-into-stress

When I was in my late twenties, I was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Doctors operated and told me to hope for the best. I returned to Japan, where I was working, and tried to forget about it. The tumors returned a year later, this time in my liver. After a long search, the surgeons found a new procedure to remove them, but I knew this was, again, perhaps only a temporary fix. I was a mess for the next six months. The hardest part of my illness was my constant anxiety about it coming back.

Then I met a man who changed my outlook. Dr. Derek Roger had spent 30 years researching why some people in difficult situations become overwhelmed, while others persevere. He taught me everything he’d learned, and as I started applying it, my anxiety subsided, even though my situation didn’t change. In fact, the cancer came back about five years ago and remains relatively stable in my liver. But I no longer worry about it. Derek became my mentor, and over the past 10 years we have trained thousands of leaders to overcome their stress.

The process starts with understanding that stress is caused not by other people or external events, but by your reactions to them. In the workplace, many people blame their high anxiety levels on a boss, job, deadlines, or competing commitments for their time. But peers who face the same challenges do so without stress. Derek and I often meet executives who have high levels of pressure but low levels of stress, and vice versa.

Pressure is not stress. But the former is converted to the latter when you add one ingredient: rumination, the tendency to keep rethinking past or future events, while attaching negative emotion to those thoughts. Of course, leaders must practice reflection — planning for the future or reviewing past lessons — but this is an analytical, short-term process, with positive fallout. Rumination is ongoing and destructive, diminishing your health, productivity, and well-being. Chronic worriers show increased incidence of coronary problems and suppressed immune functioning. Dwelling on the past or the future also takes us away from the present, rendering us unable to complete the work currently on our plates. If you ask ruminators how they are feeling, none will say “happy.” Most feel miserable.

To break this stress-inducing habit, Derek and I recommend four steps:

Wake up. People spend most of their day in a state called “waking sleep.” This is when you pull into the office parking lot but can’t remember the drive there, or when someone in a meeting asks for your opinion but you’ve missed the last few minutes of conversation. Since all rumination happens during this state, the first step is to break out of it. You can do this physically: Stand or sit up, clap your hands, and move your body. Or you can do it mentally: Connect with your senses by noticing what you can hear, see, smell, taste, and feel. The idea is to reconnect with the world.

Control your attention. When you ruminate, your attention gets caught in an unproductive loop, like a hamster on a wheel. You need to redirect yourself to areas in which you can take useful action. Here’s one exercise we encourage executives to use: Draw a circle on a page, and write down all of the things you can control or influence inside of it and all of the things you cannot outside of it. Remind yourself that you can care about externalities — your work, your team, your family — without worrying about them.

Put things in perspective. Ruminators tend to catastrophize, but resilient leaders keep things in perspective for themselves and their teams. We tell people to try three techniques: contrasting (comparing a past stress to the current one, i.e., a major illness versus a missed sale), questioning (asking yourself “How much will this matter in three years’ time?” and “What’s the worst that could happen?” and “How would I survive it?”) and reframing (looking at your challenge from a new angle: “What’s an opportunity in this situation I haven’t yet seen?” or even “What’s funny about this situation?”)

Let go. The final step is often the hardest. If it was easy to let it go, we would have done it already. We find that three techniques help.

The first is acceptance: Acknowledge that whether you like the situation or not, it is the way it is.

The second is learning the lesson. Your brain will review events until it feels you’ve gained something from them, so ask yourself, “What have I learned from this experience?”

The third is action. Sometimes the real solution is not to relax, but to do something about your situation. Ask yourself, “What action is required here?

Israel and how it fights desertification

https://www.israel21c.org/top-10-ways-israel-fights-desertification/

Another amazing example of RWH

http://www.thebetterindia.com/92434/a-r-shivakumar-rainwater-harvesting-bengaluru-karnataka/

Curing cancer the natural way

Please share this post as much as possible.

*Eating Fruit on Empty Stomach*

Cancer patients shouldn't die..

This will open your eyes ! Read to the end and then send it on to all on your e-list. I just did !

Dr Stephen Mak treats terminal ill cancer patients by an "un-orthodox" way and many patients recovered.

Before he used solar energy to clear the illnesses of his patients, he believes on natural healing in the body against illnesses.
See his article below.

"It is one of the strategies to heal cancer. As of late, my success rate in curing cancer is about 80%."

"Cancer patients shouldn't die.
*The cure for cancer is already found - *its in the way we eat fruits.*"

"It is whether you believe it or not."

"I am sorry for the hundreds of cancer patients who die under the conventional treatments."

*EATING FRUIT*

We all think eating fruits means just buying fruits, cutting it and just popping it into our mouths.

It's not as easy as you think. It's important to know *how* and *when* to eat the fruits.

What is the correct way of eating fruits?

*IT MEANS NOT EATING FRUITS AFTER YOUR MEALS!*

*FRUITS SHOULD BE EATEN ON AN EMPTY STOMACH*

If you *eat fruits on empty stomach*, it will play a major role to detoxify your system, supplying you with a great deal of energy for weight loss and other life activities.

*_FRUIT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FOOD._*

Let's say you eat two slices of bread and then a slice of fruit.

The slice of fruit is ready to go straight through the stomach into the intestines, but it is prevented from doing so due to the bread taken before the fruit.

In the meantime the whole meal of bread & fruit rots and ferments and turns to acid.

The minute the fruit comes into contact with the food in the stomach and digestive juices, the entire mass of food begins to spoil.

So please eat your fruits on an *empty stomach* *or before your meals !*

You have heard people complaining :

Every time I eat *watermelon* 🍉 I burp, when I eat *durian* 🍈 my stomach bloats up, when I eat a *banana* 🍌 I feel like running to the toilet, etc.. etc..

Actually all this will not arise if you *eat the fruit on an empty stomach.*

The fruit mixes with the putrefying of other food and produces gas and hence you will bloat !

Greying hair, loss of hair, balding, nervous outbursts and dark circles under the eyes all these will *NOT* *happen if you take fruits on an empty stomach.*

There is no such thing as some fruits, like orange 🍊 and lemon 🍋 are acidic, because all fruits become alkaline in our body, according to Dr. Herbert Shelton who did research on this matter.

If you have mastered the correct way of eating fruits, you have the  *SECRET of beauty, longevity, health, energy, happiness and normal weight.*

When you need to drink fruit juice - *drink only fresh fruit juice,* *NOT* from the cans, packs or bottles.

*Don't* even drink juice that has been heated up.

*Don't* eat cooked fruits because you don't get the nutrients at all.

You only get its taste.
_Cooking destroys all the vitamins._

But eating a *whole fruit* is better than drinking the juice.

If you should *drink the fresh fruit juice*, drink it mouthful by mouthful slowly, because you must let it mix with your saliva before swallowing it.

You can go on a 3-day fruit fast to cleanse or detoxify your body.

Just eat fruits and drink fresh fruit juice throughout the 3 days.

And you will be surprised when your friends tell you how radiant you look !

*KIWI fruit:*
Tiny but mighty.
This is a good source of potassium, magnesium, vitamin E & fiber. _Its vitamin C content is twice that of an orange._

*APPLE:*🍎🍏
An *apple* a day keeps the doctor away?
Although an apple has a low vitamin C content, it has antioxidants & flavonoids which enhances the activity of vitamin C thereby _helping to lower the risks of colon cancer, heart attack & stroke._

*STRAWBERRY:*🍓🍓
Protective Fruit.
*Strawberries* have the highest total antioxidant power among major fruits & _protect the body from cancer-causing, blood vessel-clogging and free radicals._

*ORANGE :*🍊🍊
Sweetest medicine.
Taking 2-4 *oranges* a day may _help keep colds away, lower cholesterol, prevent & dissolve kidney stones as well as lessens the risk of colon cancer._

*WATERMELON:*🍉🍉
Coolest thirst quencher. Composed of 92% water, it is also packed with a giant dose of glutathione, which _helps boost our immune system._

They are also *a key source of lycopene the cancer fighting oxidant.*
Other nutrients found in *watermelon* 🍉 _are Vitamin C & Potassium._

*GUAVA & PAPAYA:*🍑🍑
Top awards for vitamin C. They are the clear winners for their _high vitamin C content._

*Guava* is also rich in fiber, which _helps prevent constipation._

*Papaya* is rich in carotene; this is _good for your eyes._

*Drinking COLD water or drinks after a meal = CANCER*

Can you believe this ?

For those who like to drink cold water or cold drinks, this article is applicable to you.

It is nice to have a cup of cold water or cold drinks after a meal.

However, *the cold water or drinks will solidify the oily stuff that you have just eaten.*

_It will slow down the digestion._

Once this *'sludge' reacts with the acid*, it will break down and be *absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food.*

_It will line the intestine._

Very soon, *this will turn into FATS and lead to CANCER !*

_*It is best to drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.*_

Let's be careful and be aware. The more we know the better chance we could survive.

A cardiologist says:
if everyone who gets this msg & share it to other people you can be sure that you'll save at least one life.

So lets do it! 😃😄

Save water and generate electricity at the same time!

http://www.thebetterindia.com/91624/thinkphi-ulta-chaata-rainwater-solar-energy/

Organic farming in cities!

http://www.thebetterindia.com/91718/homecrop-organoponics-urban-farming/

Pumped hydro - another renewable source

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-17/how-seawater-hydro-could-help-south-australia/8363054?pfmredir=sm

Letter from Bill gates to Warren buffet

https://www.gatesnotes.com/2017-Annual-Letter?WT.mc_id=02_15_2017_00_AL2017Twitter_GF-TW_&WT.tsrc=GFTW

Disposing toxic waste

The toxic waste that we generate on the planet can be probably dumped onto another planet once ISRO crosses the threshold to launch satellites at dirt cheap prices at road travel prices.

Waste can be packed into small cannisters made of lead or other similar material that can withstand long distance travel. These cannisters can then be launched using mechanical giant catapults into outer space.

Each  cannister should be labeled with a number and the direction and angle  recorded.  In absence of any matter in space the object would continue to gain momentum until it reaches the gravitational field of a stronger star that starts pulling it towards itself.

If there is life on thst star and if the canister manages to reach the surface of the star undamaged it'd be great. If it is a more intelligent life form than us,, they'd be able to analyze the content and might even figure out where we are judging from the direction.

The only catch is that if there is no life form ever out there and once the canister reaches the outer peripherals of universe (if ever there is any outer oeriphery), it might rebound and start coming back at an even greater speed, a slight miss in direction might see it come back towarda Planet Earth in a million years or so..  So imagine a day once generations much in future wake up to see tiny objects enlightening the sky and missiles being fired to destroy them..

These were random musings in a bus.

A DOG AND A DONKEY

There was once a washer man who had a donkey and a dog. One night when the whole world was sleeping, a thief broke into the house, the washer man was fast asleep too but the donkey and the dog were awake. The dog decided not to bark since the master did not take good care of him and wanted to teach him a lesson.

The donkey got worried and said to the dog that if he doesn't bark, the donkey will have to do something himself. The dog did not change his mind and the donkey started braying loudly.

Hearing the donkey bray, the thief ran away, the master woke up and started beating the donkey for braying in the middle of the night for no reason.

Moral of the story "One must not engage in duties other than his own" 

Now take a new look at the same story...

The washer man was a well educated man from a premier management institute. He had the fundas of

looking at the bigger picture and thinking out of the box. He was convinced that there must be some reason for the donkey to bray in the night. He walked outside a little and did some fact finding, applied a

bottom up approach, figured out from the ground realities that there was a thief who broke in and the donkey only wanted to alert him about it. Looking at the donkey's extra initiative and going beyond the call of the duty, he rewarded him with lot of hay and other perks and became his favorite pet.

The dog's life didn't change much, except that now the donkey was more motivated in doing the dog's duties as well. In the annual appraisal the dog managed "ME" (Met Expectations). 

Soon the dog realized that the donkey is taking care of his duties and he can enjoy his life sleeping and lazing around.

The donkey was rated as "star performer". The donkey had to live up to his already high performance standards. 

Soon he was over burdened with work and always under pressure and now is looking for a NEW JOB... 

Moral of the story… ehmmm, same as above. 

Indian Railways and the Classes

A train journey from Bangalore to Delhi by Rajdhani takes close to 32-34 hrs with an entire one day thrown in. Naturally it becomes boring, sometimes especially if you are traveling alone, so the only place you seek refuge in is either books or some music.

Well this time around in search of company, I happened to go the Pantry car to grab an extra cup of tea and there I sat down to chat with the TCs (Ticket Checkers as they are popularly known). Chatting with three of these TCs for around an hour gave me a good insight into the behavior and way of living of people who travel across different classes in the Indian railways, this was from the perspective of those TCs but nevertheless a very good one, something which took my thoughts back to the STP lessons in my MBA Marketing classes.

A typical Indian railways train is a long serpent making its way through the various terrains of our country, the wagons or bogies as they are more typically known number close to 20, add and subtract a few numbers on either side depending on the booking schedule and festive seasons. The segmentation is done on the basis of various categories of classes it has and they are five in number:

1. General category


2. Sleeper


3. 3rd AC


4. 2nd AC


5. 1st AC

Till here you all too know the same facts, now for some change from the eyes of TCs.

General Category: Utter chaos, everyone talking to everyone else present, total mayhem in place.. Try hard to decipher the common thread of conversation and you wouldn’t find any. Privacy, space for the other person all are alien words here. Travel in this class if you want to get a first hand experience of how to travel with the masses(I believe the campus recruits at HLL each year have to travel in this section too as a part of their initial trainings, they do travel with truck drivers in their zones that’s for certain) You want find unruly young guys here because they don’t have any space to show their antics.

Sleeper: Some order here, people would still be talking around to everyone present but the action would now be restricted to the same coupe, eight people or less engaged in conversation at the same time. There is some common thread, with the vagaries of nature pouring in too to add more action. Here you would find young guys eager for some action, they include the unreserved category people trying to find an inch of space here and there adding to the chaos. Two or three Antakshari sessions in progress in the same bogie is not something unusual.

3rd AC: Ah, the cooling effect is in now.. The vagaries of nature are no longer there as you are shielded by tinted windows on both ends. Conversation between fellow passengers becomes less frequent here as people talk in toned down voices, action is very much restricted to the same coupe and as compared to earlier where one or two were outside the conversation, here at a time only 2-3 people would be engaged in at the same time. One more interesting parameter comes into play here, in the earlier two classes you would find large gatherings of people playing Antakshari or discussing loudly over certain topics , in short enjoying life as it is. That phenomenon is absent here because people pay that lot extra money to get some solace, silence and privacy. Loud talking or chaos here results in TC coming in and reining you in.

2nd AC: The last but one runk of the ladder. Privacy is re-inforced this time by the presence of curtains. On one side you have four people behind the curtain and on other side two people. This class is popular with newly married couples as they find the side which has two seats to be very romantic and private too. Here people hardly talk to each other, nevertheless you would still find some exceptions here and there. An interesting feature of this class is that the TCs have to take extra care here of the passengers and their whims… why? Its because during night time the passengers draw in the curtains and sleep, now if any passerby accidentally hits someone sleeping with his hand or elbow, people raise a din over here because they want that the curtains provide total disturbance free zone, this is not the problem in other classes as none of them have curtains and in the first ac its closed compartments as a whole.

1st AC: Isolated islands in the wagon. Four people each in each isolated island. If people inside the coupe know each other then they talk else there is no point of talking. Each person is lost in his/her thoughts and wants total mental solitude as well. Loud talking, group talking etc etc is out of the question here. Welcome to the elite class.

The Swedish Incident

This incident is more than a year old but definitely worth a narration.

The time was Feb 2006 and I was working out of the Volvo IT premises in Skovde, Sweden.
Quite close to my apartment where I used to stay with two of my fellow Minds, there was a large building on a small hilltop, we could never figure out what was it for as when we used to leave for office in morning it used to be dark outside and when we used to come back in the evening then also it used to be quite dark and hence we missed out on any human activity that
took place in and around the building.

It so happened that one day one of our Swedish colleagues invited us over to his home for lunch and he came to pick us up, after picking us he was briefing us on the various landmarks in the area and in the process he pointed out to that building and said that’s the "Gymnasium". I was like Wow, such a huge gym! Man these guys are something, they really are too much of fitness conscious.

So, the next day I left from office early so as to go to this gymnasium and inquire about their working times and membership charges and all. I parked my cycle at the foot of the hill, climbed the stairs and started searching for the entrance. There were many doors and as is the case with Automatic doors they open from inside only and from outside if only I know the code. So now started my process of testing each door .. In vain.. Now I resorted to next step, of peeping into various rooms and searching for a human soul… again in vain… I was beginning to think that whats wrong with these people, they build such huge gymnasiums with no-one in rooms, no information signs outside when I noticed light coming from one of the rooms.

I peeped in through the Window and hallejulah there were 3-4 pretty girls inside, now this was an even better incentive for me to become a member.. I started tapping the window first slowly then frantically… As my fairy godmother would like it, the prettiest girl of the lot looked up… I was like "Yes, meri to nikal padi"… Now with the help of sign language I started conveying that I want to come inside, she walked over to where I was standing and opened the window and spoke to me… left me wondering why did I resort to sign language in the first place? She asked me to come over to the door on the other side and she would open the door for me.

In the excitement I circled the wrong side of the building and when I didn’t find her there then I realised it must be on the other end.. By the time I reached there, to my utter grief she was no longer there instead she had stuck a broom in the door so that it doesn’t close and I can go in…

Well I picked the broom and entered the premises, my eyes were frantically searching for the girl when a huge gentleman came into the view.. Greetings exchanged and then he says "Ah! You must be the gentleman for whom the young girl was waiting over here, your girl has left and she must be in one of the rooms"

By this time I was like going crazy, God what sort of Gym is this, I have seen everything but where is the equipment?

I told the gentleman.. Sir, I think there is something wrong here in what I know, firstly, that lady isnt my lady(though I'd loved to say the other way) and secondly I want to join this gymnasium. The gentleman reacted in a way as if something real hard stuck him. He said.." You look as an educated person to me" I replied yes I am, I have done my Masters and I am working with Volvo right now. Then he replied "Then why do you want to join the gym?" I replied "To stay physically fit" He wore a puzzled look for sometime and then burst out into peals of laughter. Seeing him laugh so hysterically I also started smiling, though I was completely unaware of the reason.

Then he said.. Young man, you follow the British english right? I said yes, I do.. He said that’s the point .. In British english Gymnasium refers to a place where you work-out whereas in Swedish English it stands for a high school.. And that’s why I was wondering that since you have already done your masters why do you want to come back to the school…

Then he took me to one of those patio windows and showed me the real fitness gyms down the road, this time he led me to the door and ensured that I left safely.
All in all… I came back very disappointed, my joy of being a member of such a huge gym was washed out and my dreams of that pretty girl didn’t even survive beyond one meeting :-( I hope that gym and that girl are doing well, as for myself I and gym continue to play hide-and-seek with each other as always..

Delhi traffic.. Saddi Dilli

Delhi traffic is a classic case of how things can go totally haywire when people have a scant disregard for the laws, rules or regulations (term it what ever you like)
Driving on Delhi roads is much more tough and stressful than Formula-1 racing because over there you have only one type of competitors fighting for the same space – cars, albeit of different make but still cars. On Delhi roads you have as much variety as you would find in a local vegetable market. Small to large, cheap to costly you name it and you have the variety.

For the uninitiated who are unacquainted with Delhi traffic, they might find this all gibber and gabber and would dismiss this article with a shrug saying “Big Deal, same is the situation in all the major metros in India”. But no dear friend, you have to be in Delhi, sit in the driver’s seat and drive around any major or minor road and you would get a first hand experience of what I am driving to.

There are exceptions everywhere and so are here, please don’t include the green heartland of Delhi – Sir Lutyen’s Delhi in this category.. reasons? All other conditions kept the same the security is so tight in this area that as this is a VIP zone that try any of your circus acts here and you wont pass by the next two traffic signals, you would be intercepted by one of the famed Delhi cops beforehand. Trust me when I say this, you’d rather prefer to wait in the serpentine queue for another 10 mins rather than risk having a confrontation with the Delhi cops because they wont distinguish if you are a software engineer or a vice-president. The result of which is that they wouldn’t hesitate even a second to man-handle you and talk to you in such a rural and harsh language resulting in you praying to god that why wasn’t I born as a snail so that I could retreat into my shell this very instant.

Coming back to the main subject, Delhi traffic.. Delhi has by and large the widest streets/roads in the entire country.. No second opinions on this. And Delhi would soon be the city to have the largest number of fly-overs in the entire continent. Still, venture out at any time/hour onto the streets of Delhi, be it the arterial ring road or the by lanes and sub lanes you would never find them devoid of traffic snarls. In short, there is no predictable time when I can venture out and reach my destination in a relatively shorter amount of time. Now why is this so? Primarily because of the various players we have on the Delhi roads.. So I’d give you a vivid description of these players now.

Buses: two types, the state run DTC(Delhi Transport Corporation) and private buses.
The state run DTC buses would keep on rolling on the left side of the street in their lane.. rickety and smoke emitting, they are relics of a by-gone era.. not from the times of Raj though. They are the least of a disturbance as you can overtake them anytime you want, they wont run you down on red-lights because once they stop at signals it takes an equivalent of electric shocks to bring them to life again.

Private buses – Ah!! These are the notorious, street robbers, gangsters, bullies… call them n number of names and they wont suffice. In Delhi these buses make the Page3 headlines each day with the number of people they ran down the previous day on Delhi roads. Popularly known as the Red Line or Blue Line buses, they are operated by private owners who do an excellent job of packing people like sardines in a can in the bus. They are very customer friendly, give them a hand and they would stop for you bang in the middle of the road with a screeching halt, the customer friendliness ends here.. Try haggling with them over the price of tickets and you might find yourself either thrown out of the door or beaten black and blue by the conductors and driver. You might wonder that I am over- exaggerating, ok take a sample size… visit the Delhi Edition of TOI and Hindustan times online for just five days and you would very well get it if I am exaggerating or not.

Cycles, Rickshaw pullers, four wheeled carts and 3 wheeled luggage carts – These guys are the uncrowned kings of Delhi roads primarily because they don’t need a “License To Drive” and hence they do not have any fear of the law what-so-ever. These chaps drive their respective vehicles with such a major disdain bang in the innermost lane, that they very well act as bottlenecks to choke the incoming traffic and smoothline the outgoing traffic. These guys are simply crazy, they change their lanes at the last moment by just lifting their miniature hands a little bit, no consideration at all for the vehicles approaching from the back… screeching sounds of brakes also acts as no deterrent for them. And Dare you, yes Dare you touch even their royal wagons with your peanut vehicle, they’d make sure you don’t leave the place with 2000 bucks less in your pocket.

Two – Wheelers( Motor cycles, scooters) :- These guys are the equivalent of F1 drivers in the motorcycle racing. They live in the truest spirit, nothing can stop them on Delhi roads. If there is a long traffic jam in front of them, they would either mount their vehicle on to the middle partition or take it straight on the sidewalks and wroom wroom they’d start racing again. The act of driving your two wheeler zig zag between vehicles standing on a red light is an art typical in Delhi. I tried emulating the same in Chennai twice/thrice, my pillion friends closed their eyes and started chanting that very instant, that was the last time they sat behind me on any vehicle.


If you have reached so far, then I’d say I am tired of punching out, see you sometime in my neighboring car on one of the Delhi roads and then we too would wroom wrooooom.

Where do we stop

These thoughts have been crossing my mind very lately after arriving here in New York.

When in India most professionals (IT or non IT) want to go abroad as a part of their jobs. For a significant chunk, US is the mecca.. one has to go there at least once. I am no exception. So after reaching here I realise there is wealth, abundance of wealth all around.. New York is bloody huge with massive companies in terms of numbers not employee heads. After coming here you start thinking, you should be here i.e. you should move your base here and earn dollars. You get married and get your spouse here too, both start working and start getting dollars. With the passsage of time your life style changes and expenses increase. So even if you manage to save 20K USD per year, its a big deal by Indian standards but not in US, here it's peanuts.

Then why are you here in the first place? You come here far from your country, start working here much to the anguish of your near and dear ones and finally after 4-5 years you are cribbing..

I think cribbing is the birth-right of every mortal, it begins from child hood itself.

When a person is child, he is always eager to go into the next class and be more big. In the final years of school he wants to be in college so fast so that he lives an independent life. Once in college you start missing your school days and all the fun. Final years of college, students worry about their PG, once in PG you worry about Jobs.

Got a new job, the excitement lasts only for few weeks, only that is the time when the new company is all rosy and everything from reception to vending machines all is great. Few months in the org and the same company now sucks big time and start looking out for change.... and so it goes on and on.

If not each one of us starts dreaming about being a Bill Gates and start enjoying life with the current levels, happiness would prevail at large.

Now this is a preacher at work, the big question is would I practice what I preach? As of now, I dont, I hope I do it in future but am not sure...

Wish me Luck :)

Hi I am back

Hi,

For people who havent read the earlier post please read the post earlier to this and come back to this again. Because its then that what I am saying would make relevance.

I had read the story of 1000 marbles a long time back. Once I had read the story I thought about it for some time and then stored it in one of the folders in my mail-box. But recently, I have felt the need to revisit it again. The primary reason being that more than 4 months in Singapore now, I wasnt doing much apart from my work, reading, music and watching occasional TV.

I felt I was wasting away the weeks of my life, more predoominantly the weekends. Its then i decided that let me make a conscious effort to make productive utilisation(apart from cooking, ironing clothes and all) of all the weeekends that come my way because otherwise most of my weekends I spend just doing mundane tasks or dozing off.

So for the past 3 weekends, I have been trying to move out the confines of my house, and doing somethign extra. the first weekend I had been for the IIT Singapore Alumni Association Holi celebrations. The next weekend I went to donate blood. Last weekend nope didnt do anythign out of house but was at home customising my new lap with new warez to suit my needs.

Today being Saturday, the first day of the weekend, I am writing this article, reading a MCKC report on Latin America. After this I have to read up on some stuff for my D80. Once I am done with the same I have to download some photo tools for my beloved camera.

So, friends Romans and fellow country men what are you guys doing this weekend to make it more productive as compared to just eating, drinking and sleeping?

Enjoy....

See you soon.
Rohin

A Thousand Marbles

Hi guys,

Its after a long time I am making a post this time again its not my words but someone else's words which I am copying here to enable all of you to read it. They are real good. Just take 5 mins to read thru it and after that dont forget it, remember it..

A Thousand Marbles
By Jeff Davis

I’m a Ham radio operator and spend some time working with radios and electronics. So when I heard this story it really made me think! I hope that you will find some application in your own life as well...

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the basement shack with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning, turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time? Let me tell you about it.

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know, the kind, he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whomever he was talking with something about “a thousand marbles.”

I was intrigued and sat down to listen to what he had to say. “Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you’re busy with your job. I’m sure they pay you well but it’s a shame you have to be away from home and your Family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. Too bad you missed your daughter’s dance recital.”

He continued, “Let me tell you something Tom, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities.” And that’s when he began to explain his theory of a “thousand marbles.”

“You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.”

“Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900 which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now stick with me Tom, I’m getting to the important part.”

“It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail,” he went on, “and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy.”

“So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to roundup 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right here in my workshop next to the radio. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away.”

“I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.”

“Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday then God has blessed me with a little extra time to be with my loved ones...”

“It was nice to talk to you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your loved ones, and I hope to meet you again someday. Have a good morning!”

You could have heard a pin drop when he finished. Even the show’s moderator didn’t have anything to say for a few moments. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to do some work that morning, and then go to the gym. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. “C’mon honey, I’m taking you and the kids to breakfast.”

“What brought this on?” she asked with a smile.

“Oh, nothing special,” I said. “It has just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we’re out? I need to buy some marbles.”

Steve Job's Speech in Stanford Ceremony

This is an amazing speech by Steve Jobs in Stanford University's graduation ceremony!

Life Re-defined

"The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death. Whats that a Bonus?!?! I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first get that out of the way. Then you go live in an old age home. you get kicked out for being too healthy. Go collect your pension then when you start work you can buy a gold watch on your first day. you work for forty years until you are young enough to enjoy your retirement. you drink alcohol, you party and you get ready for high school. you go to primary school you become a kid, you play you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back where you spend your last nine months floating with luxuries like central heating, spa and room service on tap. Then you finish off as an Orgasm!!!! Amen"

And here is a classic to finish it……

"Looking at a cleavage is like looking at the sun. You don't stare at it. It's too risky. You get a sense of it and then you look away"

Tamil – The language and people

The above title would probably make the reader wonder if this is some sort of thesis? No Sir this is no thesis on Tamil it’s a mental recall of my observations of the language and people associated with it.

I have heard many people say that Tamilians( as the Tamil people are popularly known) are very crazy or obsessed with the Tamil language to the extent that apart from learning the English language they are least bothered to learn any other language.

Earlier I used to agree with the above and used to get into an argument with any Tamilian I met that why don’t they learn Hindi language as it’s the National language of India. It took me more than 25 years of my life to realize that Hindi is not the sole national language of India there are 21 other national languages in India, Hindi is one of them. If you find it hard to believe, please check (http://indiaimage.nic.in/languages.htm). When I learned this my view of the people and their language took a full U-turn.

It made me wonder that when we see any European country and its citizens, they are so protective and proud of their respective languages our immediate reaction is “Wow these guys really know how to preserve their language and culture” and when we see the same scene re-enacted in our own country’s state we label them as people who are rigid and stubborn with a nasty attitude.

Having stayed in Chennai for 2 years and having observed the people and their culture from very close quarters, I feel the entire country should be proud of them, they are the sole state as far as I remember who carry their language and their culture proudly on their sleeves as they are proud owners of a language which is one of the oldest languages that exist in the world today being more than 2000 years old and also one of the very few Indian languages totally independent of Sanskrit.

Think of Chennai and what comes to mind is the unbearable hot and sultry climate, but Chennai, the heart of Tamil-Land is also an unparalleled land of Passion.

Chennai is the sole city in India which has the largest Rock-Fan following throughout the country, want a visible proof of the same? Visit Saarang, the IIT-Madras annual cultural festival, no other cultural festival in the entire country has an entire pavilion dedicated to the rock stars who come in from various parts of the state and perform live, day-in and day-out for 4 days at a stretch.

Chennai is the place where you would find Bike-Crazy guys who exhibit a hitherto unseen or unfelt love for the sheer thrill of biking, driving endlessly on the endless ECR road for hours at stretch, performing stunts with their bikes which ends the line between “Man and Machine” and they are one entity in total, talking and breathing to each other oblivious of their surroundings doing just one thing, Enjoying the sheer thrill which is born out of Passion.

Being an Indian who has spend most of his life in North India I was a witness to strange forms of dance in parties or festivals, dances which never made any sense to me as I perceived them as a drill with some music in the background majorly of two forms – Arms high up in the air and jumping up and down and secondly of people dancing in a circle once they clap out and then they clap in. Chennai and its people taught me as to what sheer Passion combined with the right music can do to the art of dancing– It can give a “high” unheard or unseen before by both ways – Either by just watching them perform or jumping yourself into the fray.

Now after reading this you can do 2 things – Either ignore this and move on or jump in the boat with the “Tam” gang and learn there is much more to life than the monotonous routine, there is “Passion”.