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Sunday 9 May 2010

By birth or by choice?

Mother's day brought this message for me. Before you were conceived, I wanted you. Before you were born, I loved you. When you were born, I saw your face and knew I was in love. Before you were an hour old, I knew I would die for you. To this day, I will. With Mother's Day approaching, repost this if you have children you love more than life.

I ofcourse had my own retort for it!!
My reply: "before you were conceived I didnt know you, Before you were born, I didnt love you. when you were born I was not there. Before you were an hour old I didnt know soon I would be ready to die for you. Today I want to live for you. You were born in my heart and I love you more than my life"Not just on mother's day I Love you everyday and Hope you will love me always too".
For some of us both the messages are applicable and for some just the second one.
What difference does it make?
Those who find this post difficult to understand have not realised that the second child is the one which became a part of life not by birth but by choice.

Tuesday 4 May 2010

Measuring for heart attack

Last couple of years I have been listening to so many stories where people who were on the driving seat had a heart attack and died while driving.
I wonder why car manufacturers do not put a heart rate meter or a meter for measuring pulse on the steering wheel.
If one can put such measuring instruments on treadmill or cycles particlarly smart meters which show ranges going into red or danger zone etc.why not in cars. The machine can be battery operated connected to the car battery or have one for itself.
Many lives can be saved and the driver will maybe decide to not commence on his last journey at all.

Wednesday 24 March 2010

"Principal - "Gone in the Hair"

Today's news headline carried a news item - Prinicpal of a school has been fired for having cut the fringe of a girl in school. Its all good
what about the fact that the fringe was too long in the first place.
No one reaches the level of a Principal of a school without having adequate academic experience apart from peoples skills.
There is no justification for cutting the hair and now the child is undergoing trauma for life!! Its not good at all.
There is no mention of how many warnings the Prinicipal or before that the teachers gave the child or why the parents were not warned or why the parents themselves did not take any action.(fringe falling on the forehead obstructs and spoils the eye sight)
One might think that we are old school of thought!
So what we wore two plaits to school till grade 12th. yes we made fun of teachers just as kids do but those were not insults which we could think of hurling at them or in front of them. Principal of school was very revered.
My parents are teachers as is my sister and it must have been in the genes because now,I am one too.
Respect has to be inculcated :Guru devo bhava( Teacher is God)
Mata, Pita , Guru, Daivam.(Mother tells the child who the father is,the father takes the child to the teacher and the teacher shows the path to God)
Even now I call my kids teachers Mam though many of them are much younger than me.
As such the teaching profession particularly is not very well paid, and day by day the parents create more hassles for teachers than what the teachers are ready to take so now we have additional reasons to discourage our next generation from taking up another noble profession.
All these years of nobility and teaching for what"gone in the hair".

Tuesday 23 March 2010

Musings on war by an ordinary adult

8th April'03

'I TOLD YOU SO',SAID MY HUSBAND TO ME THE OTHER NIGHT,'YOU KEPT SAYING IT WONT HAPPEN BUT IT DID'.'I DIDNT WANT IT TO HAPPEN AND WAS IN THE PROCESS OF SELF DENIAL ,YOU CANT ACCUSE ME FOR NOT WANTING IT TO HAPPEN'.

THE HOT DISCUSSION WAS OFCOURSE THE ONGOING WAR.HE KEPT WARNING ME IT WAS ON ITS WAY AND I KEPT SAYING NO THERE WONT BE A WAR.BUT SADLY THE WAR CAME AND WE ARE WELL INTO THE 20TH DAY OF IT.YES WE SEE ALL THE PAPERS AND THE TV CHANNELS SHOWING IT TO US THROUGH MOVING PICTURES AND WORDS.THERE IS NO DIGNITY EVEN IN DEATH.

WHETHER THE WAR IS FOR POWER OR OIL OR ARMS I DONT KNOW WHAT I DO KNOW IS SO MANY INNOCENT PEOPLE ARE DYING OUT THERE AND THEY DONT EVEN KNOW WHY.HOW MANY CHILDREN ARE BEING ORPHANED.FOR MOST OF US WAR GOING ON THE TV CHANNELS FOR MORE COVERAGE IS A PART OF THE DAY AND ONCE YOU SWITCH OFF THE TV ITS GONE BUT WHAT ABOUT ALL THE PEOPLE WHO ARE LIVING THIS WAR DAY IN AND DAY OUT.

WE WERE HERE ONLY DURING THE GULF WAR IN '91BUT THAT TIME IT DIDNT SEEM SO HORRIFYING FOR ONE THERE WAS NO MINUTE TO MINUTE COVERAGE OF THE SAME BESIDES WE WERE YOUNG AT THAT TIME AND ABLE TO LET THINGS PASS US BY.NOW WE ARE THAT MUCH OLDER AND HAVE COMMITMENTS.WHEN I LOOK AT MY SON IT SCARES ME TO THINK WHAT THE WORLD IS COMING TO.HOW DO I EXPLAIN THE WAR TO HIM .WHAT DO I TELL HIM ABOUT ALL THE REFUGEES AND THE WAR ORPHANS.NO I HAVE NO ANSWER TO THESE AND JUST HOPE THAT HE DOESNT ASK ME THESE QUESTIONS.

THOUGH I AM A VERY POSITIVE PERSON THE WAR SHOWN ON THE TV AND DESCRIBED IN DETAIL IS HEART WRENCHING.THE PCITURES ARE HORRIFIC AND PATHETIC AT THE SAME TIME .THERE ARE SOME KIND SOULS WHO HAVE TRAVELLED FROM FAR AWAY COUNTRIES TO HELP THE WAR TORN PEOPLE AND KUDOS TO THEM.ALL I CAN DO IS SWITCH OFF THE TV AND PRAY.PRAYERS CAN WORK MIRACLES .THATS SOMETHING PREACHED BY ALL RELIGIONS.

I AM SURE THIS IS ONE ARGUEMENT MY HUSBAND WOULD HAVE PREFERRED TO LOSE TO ME AND I WISH I HAD WON WITH 'THERE WILL BE NO WAR'.

Monday 22 March 2010

Revamping with Windows 7 good or.....?

I am all excited about my new laptop with 4GB RAM and 500 Gb Hard disk. Cant get better than this at least right now.
Then I receive a message which says you cant use Internet explorer 9 with anything else except Windows 7 or Vista.
Now having used Vista for 3 years I dont even realise that people still use XP.
Microsoft a great organisation and I am all for it and it amazes me no end how they keep creating new software solutions and products and force you into a situation where all the old material becomes redundant.
Good for microsoft bad for us.
I have this whole lot of cd's and games(from Windows 95 days) which just does'nt work anymore so eventually what are we to do with all that? The whole purpose of a CD/ DVD was longevity in terms of data safety so when the programs associated become redundant what is the use of longevity?
When one window closes does a door open or is it another WINDOWS?

Wednesday 10 March 2010

When personal is public.

Yesterday was a busy day.I went to attend this conference. There was this guy who trying to upload the presentation to the Laptop connected to the projector using the USB drive. Though the conference had not started there was a fair amount of crowd sitting in the audience.
Our man is searching up and down his files, visible to all and sundry, and he looks at each file name and then next which means the audience is able to read the file names. It was fine till he had folders named CV and Australia and Pictures.Then lo and behold!! suddenly one realizes that every 5th file was a video file with titles like ..... hot babe..., again.....sexy something....,....blond...... so on and so forth.
Now I am the last one to judge people on their personal preferences but in a public forum one should maintain certain decorum.
This again brings me to how much do we reveal about ourselves in public without realizing.
Imagine the audience had this guy's Boss what would he perceive of the folder CV? does it indicate the guy is looking for other jobs, does not feel safe in this job or is making a statement by keeping his CV folder apparently updated enough to carry it on a USB drive in his pocket.
As such many feel that people share too much stuff online which others have no business knowing about but I disagree and say it is up to the person to decide how much he/she wants to reveal and should do only that much.
Good thing to remember is if you live in a glass house rest assured all your actions will be observed so be careful and treat the web as a glass house, infact not just the web but all gadgets which store information.

Friday 5 March 2010

It happens only in India

This would have been just another vacation and back to the base Dubai except for the small things which made this vacation a little unusual.

On our way back from Tirunelveli to Coimbatore we stopped in hotel Aarthi in Maduraie for breakfast.which is always one of our favourite haunts as its quite close to the main madurai meenakshi temple and the food is delicious.halfway through our breakfast of idli vada and dosa we heard this jingling of bells and then appears this big elephant with her trainer in tow.we were very much surprised as it was around 7am and bit too early for elephant blessing ceremony(which is ritual in our southie temples.

But no sire our elephant elegantly and lovingly referred to as Madurai Valli Taayar(which incidentally means Madurai Valli mother)had come to have a part of her breakfast .very soon the bearer brought around 20- 40 idlis and fed them to her two at a time.next we had a big can of milk put right into her mouth (not the trunk mind you).then it was time to leave but no she would not budge without her katori of mixture(one for the road and all...)it seems before going to the temple which she belongs to she comes in the morning to have her breakfast and then again she visits the hotel in the evening for supper.this is a ritual everyday since the hotel started around 5-6 years back.and the hotel obviously considers her their lucky charm (albeit a very big one).

So next time you are in madurai, Hotel Aarthi at 7am could very well be a place you would want to visit.after all breakfasting with an elephant beats breakfasting with apes etcin zoo' like singapore any day.Any comments???

Then again it happens only in india!!!!!

In response to what did the army give you.

Hmm Yes I wanted to agree with Div( my cousin) all the way. Incidentally that morning when the original mail was received , I was going to the University I saw a school bus had stopped midway as the vehicle had come under some repair. My companion in the car said Poor kids , I just laughed and said why? the kids will be happy they have some different experience today. they will enter the school late and very proudly announce to the class as why they were late and how their whole huge bus had to be towed etc etc. Like Tom sawyer's hurt toe theirs is a new story to share today. I continued in the same vein to my companion, in grade 4 we traveled 2 hours to school in our lovely 3 tonnes. The climb used to be steep those who have traversed roopa and chindit top will agree or maybe to my eyes of a child it was steep,. Maybe the roads have changed now. Then there would be one landslide and the whole vehicle would have to take a precarious U turn and take another route to school and Yes we VIP's would walk in to class late and have our story of the size of the landslide the rows of vehicles and so on and so forth. I dont think it ever came to our minds that we should go back home nor did it ever strike our driver/ conductor etc.
They had a duty to take us to school which they did. Anycase no crazy mobile phones for the drivers to get harassed by errant parents.The 3 tonnes crossing each other from opposite side used to create so much friction that the tarpaulin would tear at times. SO all times strict instructions not to support our heads on tarpaulin behind the seat.
Train journeys were the best. You could travel unreserved in Military compartment , you had the MCO at all stations for any support.Traveled from Roopa to Misamari by road, then from misamari to Rangiya. Rangiya to calcultta via Bongaigaon I think and then calcutta to Madras and then to tiruchy. Loads of fun, staying on the platform or waiting rooms eating hot fresh food, drinking tea galore and spending almost same amount of time for connection trains as much as in the train itself.Now when flights are delayed or there are issues with train and flight I never make a sound because we grew up with waiting and knew all things would happen just that it takes its own time and no news is definitely good news.
Half of one class in Gauhati the other half in Faizabad oh it didnt make a single difference. After all appa was taking over the command of a battalion so being the CO's children was definitely more important than any 1st rank or any rank in class 7.
The Chai pakoras, jalebi, the band and the welcome team waiting in the middle of the night in the station was to be cherished and remembered always.And ofcourse poo ode naarum manakum( with the flower the thread binding it also gets a fragrance) so if appa was getting importance we were not getting any less.
Yes cantonments, Mandir parade and church parade Sunday mornings with parents was just a regular part of growing up. No one taught us to ask another person's religion. Our religion , faith, God was all ARMY.
As elders we remain the same I might ask from which place the person belongs but religion no way. I still don't know what difference it makes. To the Shivsena and RSS it does to me it doesnt. We are just Indians and like amma says son of no particular soil.
I still watch out for Republic day parade and now that I am away from the army I shed tears when I read a citation, but back then Oh a citation so proud what better glory than a death while serving the country.. yes if there was an opportunity to get in to the army for 40 + women I would opt in any day.
So army taught me many things

1. Eat what you get when you get you dont know what or when your next meal might be.
2. There will be another day so wait and be patient.
3. Dont crib about the small things in life just take it in stride this too shall pass and tomorrow is another day,
4. Dont criticise anything in life (definitely not the ARMY).Nobody is perfect and if you want to make improvements remain in the system and do it not after you come out. If you must criticize let it be for improvement not for berating.
5. Learn to be a part of your surroundings and give it your 100%. (Army is full commitment not by halves)

So dear all Thats army for me and yes laughingly in my in-laws house they call me "Military" because I am particular about punctuality and not wasting others time by being late, organising events and just generally running the show, be a part of whatever show is happening and tears, no never always ACTION!!

Thats the other thing never forget to give respect to elders and never ever forget P's and Q's
To sum up I am reminded of the Quote from "A Few Good men' one of my favourite movies, "Unit, Corps, Country,God,".And yes last but not the least 'Strength & Honour' from Ofcourse Gladiator.

Wednesday 3 March 2010

Kneading the dough

When all it takes is one plastic attachment blade in the mixie or food processor why don't companies like Sumeet, Prrethi or Butterfly give it as an attachment. Phillips , Kenwood etc put the dough kneader attachment even in basic models.
All you need is a plastic blade and some instructions to add water accordingly to the aata. One does not even need oil and flat in about 2-3 minutes you have the dough for chappati ready. Further using cutting blades for chopping palak, or radish etc and then change the blade to plastic and lo and behold our palak puri aata or mooli parantha aata is ready.
Tha blade should be able to fit the big jar or small jar.
So once again why dont companies come up with some easy solution like this.Not like its going to cost the company a lot and it definitely can be used as differentiator strategy.
The original article was written in March 2010. I was happy to see an ad with Prestige showing a kneading blade. So better late than Never.

Wednesday 24 February 2010

Gulfood 2010

Gulfood2010 was HUGE!!!! It was great. so Many countries, so many representations, so much tasting and so much sampling. Ice creams, juices,chocolates you name it and it was there.
Once again marketing is all about trial and that was abundant there.One day was definitely not enough to do the rounds and my shoes were killing me.
What bothers me as always is the parking issues or infact trying to get your vehicle even close by to the premises to get off the car/ bus. Like Disney world, trade center authorities should think in terms of having pick up and drop much farther away. Once the Metro becomes popular and better connected one should use that as preferred mode of transport.
Great exhibition!!Maybe will try to visit again today but thinking of traffic Hmmmm .....

Tuesday 23 February 2010

Random

So it was just another day and I realised that there are so many thoughts in mind and no time to put it on paper, then it stuck me why not the techy way and just jot down whats running in mind and making the mind run.
Today in class I made a mention of kambal parade.
Fauji all the way . I am a strict in class I prefer being that way. there is a certain discipline which we all should maintain. Some may say what will you achieve after all this discipline I say mutual respect. I can safely say the class has a lot of fun we talk to each other as adults.
B2B where are the case studies for it , suddenly every case seems to be only B2C. Is that an indicator that in trying to achieve customer satisfaction the initial buyer has been forgotten or is this how the business should be done with the end consumer in mind? Does the consumer actually have a mind and if his needs are not so fulfilled does he mind?