I sometime have a feeling of who I am. Who am I really? Going by the word of people, I am a human being. But so do billions of other people around the world. According to me, if a person knows who he is really, he will be Gnani - sacred one. But why it is not possible for everyone to understand who they are? Is this the reason why people go after their religious gurus who claim to be owning all our fate? If everything is with the super human power, god, why did he make only human being as the controller of the whole world? Why not a dog or cow think and manage the human and other animals? Whats so special with a human avatar? What will be this world if an animal start thinking, smiling, crying, and behaving? Will it start control the world?
Oh my god, if you are there, tell me who can answer all my questions.
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
T Nagar Ranganathan Street
Today I hit T Nagar Ranganathan Street, our usual shopping place, for Deevali purchase. Though everybody knows that it is the most crowded place in Chennai, it seems the government has taken little steps to control the place. The infrastructure is very bad. Around 2pm, it started raining a little for 5 minutes. But, that was enough to create mud in the street. I could not even place my feet in the ground. It was embarrassing to see the place during rain.
Second, the people who come out of Mambalam railway station go straight into the Ranganathan Street to reach their places of wish. Even office goers use this place. Because of this reason, the place has become even crowded. I feel the Government should regulate the traffic in such a way that only the customers of Ranganathan Street should only be allowed. Others such as office goers of TNagar should be asked to use another route. I am really not sure if another route is possible, but its my thought.
Its good thought of Saravana Stores to start their new branch in Purasavalkam. If the new branch had also started somewhere in T Nagar, it would have also contributed for additional traffic. I think all big brands should come forward to open their shops in Tier 2 cities as well. If not as big as they have in Chennai, at least a smaller shop will do to control their traffic.
An interesting stuff happened today when I was shopping. A women came out of Jayachandran Textiles with garments in her bag. When she was crossing the security gate, security alarm starting beeping. Hearing that, the women started running. The staff of the shop chased the women successfully. After holding her, they started questioning her and asked for bills. She could not produce the bills and kept on saying her husband had the bills and will pay the amount later. Having seen such people a lot of times, female staff started beating her and used foul languages. The women kept on firm. Since my time was running out, I vacated that place and didn't know what happened to her after that.
Second, the people who come out of Mambalam railway station go straight into the Ranganathan Street to reach their places of wish. Even office goers use this place. Because of this reason, the place has become even crowded. I feel the Government should regulate the traffic in such a way that only the customers of Ranganathan Street should only be allowed. Others such as office goers of TNagar should be asked to use another route. I am really not sure if another route is possible, but its my thought.
Its good thought of Saravana Stores to start their new branch in Purasavalkam. If the new branch had also started somewhere in T Nagar, it would have also contributed for additional traffic. I think all big brands should come forward to open their shops in Tier 2 cities as well. If not as big as they have in Chennai, at least a smaller shop will do to control their traffic.
An interesting stuff happened today when I was shopping. A women came out of Jayachandran Textiles with garments in her bag. When she was crossing the security gate, security alarm starting beeping. Hearing that, the women started running. The staff of the shop chased the women successfully. After holding her, they started questioning her and asked for bills. She could not produce the bills and kept on saying her husband had the bills and will pay the amount later. Having seen such people a lot of times, female staff started beating her and used foul languages. The women kept on firm. Since my time was running out, I vacated that place and didn't know what happened to her after that.
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance
The book was written by Lou Gristner who was the CEO of International Business Machine Corporation (IBM) Ltd in the historic turnaround of the company in the nineties (1992 – 2002). The company was drowning in the corporate world and at the verge of going bankruptcy. It was then Lou was hired as the CEO. The only short term goal he was given was to “save” the company.
Here’s the summary of the book content.
Lou was hesitant in accepting the offer as his background was not technical and was not confident if he would be successful. He was MBA from Howard Business School and worked for three companies all with non-technical expertise. He goes on explaining about his first job in McNeely as a consultant for companies and when he left the job after 10 years, he was one of the partner of the company. He joined American Express as Head of Card devision. He worked in Amerian Express as senior executive for 10 years and finally moved to Nan Biosco as a senior executive.
The book has been solely written by Lou without help of another ghost writer which makes the book very personal. He explains the internal strategy of the company throughout his period and how he overcomes each situation. He was managing a set of executives and explains he managed them cleverly. A Must Read book.
Here’s the summary of the book content.
Lou was hesitant in accepting the offer as his background was not technical and was not confident if he would be successful. He was MBA from Howard Business School and worked for three companies all with non-technical expertise. He goes on explaining about his first job in McNeely as a consultant for companies and when he left the job after 10 years, he was one of the partner of the company. He joined American Express as Head of Card devision. He worked in Amerian Express as senior executive for 10 years and finally moved to Nan Biosco as a senior executive.
The book has been solely written by Lou without help of another ghost writer which makes the book very personal. He explains the internal strategy of the company throughout his period and how he overcomes each situation. He was managing a set of executives and explains he managed them cleverly. A Must Read book.
Saturday, 10 July 2010
Same company for years
In IT field, I have hardly seen people working for same company for more than an year. The reason they quote is always market demand. Yes of course market demands skilled workers to join them at any cost. It is a trend of jobs pouring in from developed countries to India. But once other countries like China, Malaysia, Srilanka, Brazil are ready to take over the jobs from us, our folks will be in real trouble. Attrition is a major issue for most of the IT companies to deal with. They are not able to cope up with the resignations from top skilled workers as they are lured by other companies with bigger pay hike. Some companies take much effort on attrition management and come up with many innovative ideas to keep their top performers. It works well to some extent. But, the major problem is they cannot do this for all employees, as the retention management is including of money rewards and expensive trainings.
When we look at the same case from employees perceptive, not everyone who come out of college gets an IT/ITES job directly. Though IT companies now a day hire a lot of freshers but it is not the case for everyone. When it comes to ITES, a lot of people would have started their career as a field support or technical support engineer in a small firm for salary of Rs. 1000 to Rs. 2000. I started my career for Rs. 600 per month 8 years ago. Because they are starting their career for such low salary, they tend to jump from one company to another because they in a position to increase their CTC. We cannot say it is totally wrong. In fact it is the right approach to quickly increase your salary to match market level before choosing your dream company.
There is another aspect of it is to stay with a same company for long term. I actually worked for 4 companies in first 4 years of my career. That gives an average of one year in a company. But, in my current company I have been staying for more than 4 years now. The reasons are many. It all depends on how the company keeps you engaged on different roles and responsibilities. Of course, salary is also important, but I feel over the years it will be solved automatically if you stay for the same company. Playing a different role every year is also good idea to keep your hands on different areas of same company.
When we look at the same case from employees perceptive, not everyone who come out of college gets an IT/ITES job directly. Though IT companies now a day hire a lot of freshers but it is not the case for everyone. When it comes to ITES, a lot of people would have started their career as a field support or technical support engineer in a small firm for salary of Rs. 1000 to Rs. 2000. I started my career for Rs. 600 per month 8 years ago. Because they are starting their career for such low salary, they tend to jump from one company to another because they in a position to increase their CTC. We cannot say it is totally wrong. In fact it is the right approach to quickly increase your salary to match market level before choosing your dream company.
There is another aspect of it is to stay with a same company for long term. I actually worked for 4 companies in first 4 years of my career. That gives an average of one year in a company. But, in my current company I have been staying for more than 4 years now. The reasons are many. It all depends on how the company keeps you engaged on different roles and responsibilities. Of course, salary is also important, but I feel over the years it will be solved automatically if you stay for the same company. Playing a different role every year is also good idea to keep your hands on different areas of same company.
Don't ignore me!!!
Ignoring someone is very painful than beating him/her at times. There are times when we would have ignored others knowingly or unknowingly. I have heard this complaint many times from my wife but actually I didn't feel much about it as it was the case for everyone. But, there was an incident last weekend which made me thinking.
I went to Yelagiri with my team mates for vacation. We quite enjoyed the outing. During camp fire session, I just asked my team mates to tell me at least one negative point of me. I am actually interested to hear my negative points as it helps me correct my mistakes which I could be making without knowledge. Using the opportunity, everyone told me various points that they came across with me. But one guy told me a strange point. He said "whenever I smiled at you in the office, you never returned that gesture. Instead you prefer to look at somewhere else." He went on saying he felt really bad about it and it made him to go for smoke to relieve from that insult. He even said at such times he would check his emails and other records to find if he made a mistake in the past week which could be the reason behind my non-smiling. When heard this, others laughed, of course me too. But once I returned from vacation, I started thinking about it a lot.
It's just a human courtesy to return a smile but how could I missed it till now. I could have thousand reasons to quote ranging from pressure from customers, people and personal issues etc. But nothing could justify for this bad gesture. But, that's not the whole thing. It's just a simple smile but see how much it affects the people around you. I have seen my managers smiling at me every time the see me. I know the reason now.
I have made it a point from now on to look at people on their eyes and make a smile. It may be for a formality initially but I am sure it will become a habit after some time.
I went to Yelagiri with my team mates for vacation. We quite enjoyed the outing. During camp fire session, I just asked my team mates to tell me at least one negative point of me. I am actually interested to hear my negative points as it helps me correct my mistakes which I could be making without knowledge. Using the opportunity, everyone told me various points that they came across with me. But one guy told me a strange point. He said "whenever I smiled at you in the office, you never returned that gesture. Instead you prefer to look at somewhere else." He went on saying he felt really bad about it and it made him to go for smoke to relieve from that insult. He even said at such times he would check his emails and other records to find if he made a mistake in the past week which could be the reason behind my non-smiling. When heard this, others laughed, of course me too. But once I returned from vacation, I started thinking about it a lot.
It's just a human courtesy to return a smile but how could I missed it till now. I could have thousand reasons to quote ranging from pressure from customers, people and personal issues etc. But nothing could justify for this bad gesture. But, that's not the whole thing. It's just a simple smile but see how much it affects the people around you. I have seen my managers smiling at me every time the see me. I know the reason now.
I have made it a point from now on to look at people on their eyes and make a smile. It may be for a formality initially but I am sure it will become a habit after some time.
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Bhumi Induction
Today I attended induction session of DnE (Dhrunocharya and Eghalivan) program of the non profit organization Bhumi. It was a session of fun filled activities, different from traditional induction programs where inductors will explain you the concept of their program and all. But here in this program, I noticed a major difference that, the organizers induced participants to think and come up with ideas of what they think this program is all about and what way it could be taken forward to meet the objectives. So, it was successful I would say.
Basically as a person, I am not usually very well mingling with strangers. I would even hesitate to say "Hello" to a person unless I know him thoroughly. But, this kind of programs help me meet strangers and get to know their likes and dislikes and allow me to introduce to them and more. All these things happen in matter of few minutes to hours. So, it helps you make you a people oriented person.
It also helps you a lot of ways. Let me blog about this as I attend more sessions and meeting children and helping them in their career counseling. It is designed as one to one mentoring session. So, I think i would be guiding one student to achieve a better prospect in his/her life.
Its just a beginning.... let's see how it goes!!!
Basically as a person, I am not usually very well mingling with strangers. I would even hesitate to say "Hello" to a person unless I know him thoroughly. But, this kind of programs help me meet strangers and get to know their likes and dislikes and allow me to introduce to them and more. All these things happen in matter of few minutes to hours. So, it helps you make you a people oriented person.
It also helps you a lot of ways. Let me blog about this as I attend more sessions and meeting children and helping them in their career counseling. It is designed as one to one mentoring session. So, I think i would be guiding one student to achieve a better prospect in his/her life.
Its just a beginning.... let's see how it goes!!!
Saturday, 27 March 2010
PMP Session
Though I manage a big team in the office, I am not a certified Project Manager. So, I decided to go for a PMP Certification. I was thinking about how to start it because PMP is a big concept and its not easy to break it without assistance from a professional. I downloaded some online tutorial and tried to study it but it was not really working well. Suddenly I came to know there was a session scheduled for PMP and the trainer was Mr. Upendra Giri. I searched in the net and found he was a big guy in project management. He has given key note speeches in many places and closely worked with many top people.
The class went well for last three days and tomorrow is the fourth day and he flew today by handing over the last day class to someone else. In three days classes that he conducted, most of the time he spent in giving real time stories as examples. There was a message in each stories. He narrated the stories in fun filled ways. He basically seems to be humorous person. There was a think line of fun in the way he speaks normally.
I could also notice he was bosing much and trying to create an impression that he is really a big guy and have close rapport with most of the top people in India and the world. Ofcourse, it is true.
Over all, the session was good and I got a good understanding of Project Management. Tomorrow is the model exam. The next step would be to enroll as a member with PMI and go with preparing for the exam.
My MBA exam is also starting next month, so I am not sure if I would be able to find time for preparing PMP, but I would like to finish is as soon as possible (before I forget things that I learned in last three days).
The class went well for last three days and tomorrow is the fourth day and he flew today by handing over the last day class to someone else. In three days classes that he conducted, most of the time he spent in giving real time stories as examples. There was a message in each stories. He narrated the stories in fun filled ways. He basically seems to be humorous person. There was a think line of fun in the way he speaks normally.
I could also notice he was bosing much and trying to create an impression that he is really a big guy and have close rapport with most of the top people in India and the world. Ofcourse, it is true.
Over all, the session was good and I got a good understanding of Project Management. Tomorrow is the model exam. The next step would be to enroll as a member with PMI and go with preparing for the exam.
My MBA exam is also starting next month, so I am not sure if I would be able to find time for preparing PMP, but I would like to finish is as soon as possible (before I forget things that I learned in last three days).
Axis Bank - the Idiots
I went through all sorts of idiotic things with Axis Bank this week. I applied for Rs. 6L personal loan with them. They initially said it was possible to sanction the amount based on my salary take home. After few days, after completing all verification and inquiries, they said they could sanction only 5L. I was irritated now because I already made my plans to purchase a plot based on this amount as I arranged remaining amount through other sources. Two days back, Axis came back to me again to say they could sanction only 4L now. Now I cannot do anything with this amount. I am back to starting position now. My plot owner is insisting me to do registration by next week and I am still not arranged the money. I'am now chasing other banks for the remaining amount but the time is key factor now. Since I have already lost one week with them, now it will take another one week if I go to another bank. However, Citibank promised to give money in two days. Lets see...!
Of course there are few advantages with Axis bank which made me to go with them. The interest rate with them is least in the industry. Its just 15%. Other banks offer 15.5% to 16.5%. Another advantage is that they allow Part Payment and Pre Closure which no other bank offers.
Though I like all these features, their service makes me feel I should never go back to them. They don't understand the requirement of the customer and just make the customer to run from pillor to post for nothing. They don't have a clear policy of how much approve or reject. They run it like a government agency. You have nobody to contact if your problem is not solved.
Lets see how it goes next week.
Of course there are few advantages with Axis bank which made me to go with them. The interest rate with them is least in the industry. Its just 15%. Other banks offer 15.5% to 16.5%. Another advantage is that they allow Part Payment and Pre Closure which no other bank offers.
Though I like all these features, their service makes me feel I should never go back to them. They don't understand the requirement of the customer and just make the customer to run from pillor to post for nothing. They don't have a clear policy of how much approve or reject. They run it like a government agency. You have nobody to contact if your problem is not solved.
Lets see how it goes next week.
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Nithyananda
Nithyananda - it is the talk of the world right now. Even a 6 year old may know what the issue all about. Is it because of his sex relationship with an actress - his ladylove? No - it is because he is a godman and taught others about Bramacharyam and his person life is full of corruption and lust. He has made crores of rupees by cheating others. He charged anywhere between 2k to 5k for Dharshan and in lakhs for speeches. He also charged in thousands to lakhs to visit his disciples house and to meet them and offer "varam". Now his true face is exposed in the media - thanks to Sun News and Nakeeran and various other media.
I would not say it is completely because of Nitha. Though he used all his skills to make money, it is that our people who made him God. There is famous line in Kamal's "Anbey Sivam" movie. Trust those who say God exists. Trust those who say God doesnt exist. But never trust those who proclaim himself as God. How true the words are. Honestly, I don't believe a middle man required between us and God.
If you note one uniqueness in all 'Samiyars', they first start their career/business as Godman as the one who provides a very good speech first and then teaches Yoga and other classes. If someone who teaches Yoga, treat him as a master - not as a God. At the start of the period, his disciples see him as one who come in between god and human. After few coincidental things happened in favor of them, they start considering the person as God himself. It is nothing but mere stupidity.
First nobody in this world has seen god. They take advantage of it. They make people believe that they are avatars of God. They don't show proof for their claim. Instead they only confuse people saying something which ordinary people cannot understand. Of course it is an art and they become masters of it.
Some people who are known as "Sithars" are the ones who left the family life and dedicated themselves in the search of truth of life. They never attempted to score publicity and money. They never said they are the avatars of God. Instead they said they don't know who they are. So, you can easily identify the ones who are really the sithars. First they don't ask for money, second, they don't try to create publicity. Third, they don't go all about and conduct classes and charging lakhs of rupees.
If one took a second and thought about all these things, he/she wouldn't have fallen into Nithya's undue crazy. Anyway, people have understood him now, and they will not go to him anymore - but it doesn't mean they will not go to another "samiyar" tomorrow. In one way, they are all Sithars themselves - they keep on searching someone to tell them who them are really.
I would not say it is completely because of Nitha. Though he used all his skills to make money, it is that our people who made him God. There is famous line in Kamal's "Anbey Sivam" movie. Trust those who say God exists. Trust those who say God doesnt exist. But never trust those who proclaim himself as God. How true the words are. Honestly, I don't believe a middle man required between us and God.
If you note one uniqueness in all 'Samiyars', they first start their career/business as Godman as the one who provides a very good speech first and then teaches Yoga and other classes. If someone who teaches Yoga, treat him as a master - not as a God. At the start of the period, his disciples see him as one who come in between god and human. After few coincidental things happened in favor of them, they start considering the person as God himself. It is nothing but mere stupidity.
First nobody in this world has seen god. They take advantage of it. They make people believe that they are avatars of God. They don't show proof for their claim. Instead they only confuse people saying something which ordinary people cannot understand. Of course it is an art and they become masters of it.
Some people who are known as "Sithars" are the ones who left the family life and dedicated themselves in the search of truth of life. They never attempted to score publicity and money. They never said they are the avatars of God. Instead they said they don't know who they are. So, you can easily identify the ones who are really the sithars. First they don't ask for money, second, they don't try to create publicity. Third, they don't go all about and conduct classes and charging lakhs of rupees.
If one took a second and thought about all these things, he/she wouldn't have fallen into Nithya's undue crazy. Anyway, people have understood him now, and they will not go to him anymore - but it doesn't mean they will not go to another "samiyar" tomorrow. In one way, they are all Sithars themselves - they keep on searching someone to tell them who them are really.
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