Face-Face

Ladies and Gentlemen  and esteemed guests; a very Good evening. I feel extremely privileged this evening, to get an opportunity to share my thoughts for one last time in this summer.

May I begin my speech by asking you to name few  all time best, love couples  in this world? Who according to you in history are best couple, who are synonymous to true love?

When I searched internet for this information, I was filled with many names from “Romeo & Juliet” , “Salim & Anarkali , shahjahan & mumtaz”;  Good information. I am very happy about it.

I would like to ask you my next question: do you know anyone in the recent times, who shared history with the above pairs? There was no information regarding this on the internet.   Perhaps concept of best couples ended many years back.

  What does it mean to all of us? What does it reflect for all of us? What does it convey to everyone?

  I cannot say it on behalf of everyone like President Obama, but for me it means that we do not have strong relations like before. We do not have true love stories any more.  Those exist only in movies. Sad but true!!!!

Strong social and personal relationships no more exist.

When was the last time you had school reunion?

When was the last time you had a family get together with all of your cousins, parents, grandparents etc? It could be long time ago.

 Do you know the probable reason for this? Would you like to know?

It is all because of Face Book.  It is all because of Face book and you heard it right J

There are many disadvantages Facebook offers to mankind apart from its advantages.

Face book has joined” elite list of basic needs” essential for a human being. It now shares equal space of common needs of a human being such as food, water, shelter & personal hygiene. There can be more people without personal number in the country but not without an account in Face book. The more the friends in FB the more pride it is.  The more likes the happier we are.

Face book has helped a lot to create a personal brand for many individuals and for businesses. Moreover, it’s a major source of entertainment for people around the globe.  I couldn’t find my name in Internet before advent of Face book. Now I can be searched in Google. Thanks to face book to let this to happen. I can get popular one day on Face book which is my birthday

Face book is the most powerful social media and social networking site. It allows us to connect with our family, friends, work colleague and to meet new people. This is the best way to find our school, college or any other old profile. Moreover, it’s easy to find like-minded people by seeing their interests, and we can easily connect with them using wall updates, private message, poke or text, and chat.

It is a best thing for dating and video chatting. Wonderful.

Life is not all that simple. There are many side effects of FB. One primary target group who are severely affected by FB are teenagers. Face book has joined addiction club many years ago along with Drugs, alcohol etc

“You know you are addicted to Face book when you log off Facebook, turn your computer off, go to bed, role over, and log onto your Facebook from your phone one last time for the night.”   You are addicted when you End a face book conversation by liking the last comment that was posted.

Teenagers have started losing interest in their surroundings. They are addicted to Fb  and the only thing they are  concerned about is their “own” world, which is inside Fb.

The second disadvantage effect is that the real-world social interaction is diminishing. There is no doubt that they are going to have hundreds of friends on Fb , but with how many of them would you be interacting out in the real world. As a human being, we are a social creature and naturally require a real-world social interaction. When we are spending our maximum time on the Internet, it decreases our communication and social skills. 1 real friend interaction is more than 100 virtual friends. Slowly virtual world is becoming real and real world as virtual. Few years ago you would like to meet your old school mate. But now you would think

“What's the point of a high school reunion? I have Facebook. I already know he got fat. I already know she got married”

Once virtual life grows and appears real, relationships slowly diminish. It matters more if we can hug our father on Father’s day instead of wishing him in Face book. People tend to confuse to divide between personal lives and social life. When a couple fights, they change their status to single, when they calm down they propose to each other on their walls. We talk to walls more than anything and it is only possible due to Facebook

People nowadays take pictures, not for memories, but to post them on face book and get comments

Can you imagine your life if face book goes offline for a day or week. It could be impossible

Can you imagine your life without talking to family or friends for a day or week. Mostly Possible

Its time for us to think clearly.  Information about others  is good but too much information or silly updates help us no where. We need to understand importance of real world. Hand written letters, hugs, greetings, expressions and communication strengthen a relation. This could be the reason to  have good love stories in the past. That could be the reason why we know Romeo and Juliet.

Face book is like a knife in hand. We need to use it carefully to help us in our daily needs. The moment we relax it can injure us badly. Let’s not realize real world only when we cut our finger.

A relationship is not like Facebook where you can sign in/out

·         Don’t just text a friend, call him over his mobile

·         Don’t just wish your family in Facebook, meet them

·         Don’t post problems in Facebook, search for solutions in Google

Shut Down Facebook NOW go for FACE-FACE IMMEDIATELY.

Thanks all

Season of life

It is a golden era of learning, creativity, joy, fun and love. All those memories still haunt me every day, like my first crush and my last sex. It offers many stories to share with my kids and the generations that follow. It restores my lost smile, reminds on the forgotten innocence, re-kindles back latent curiosity and revives again all the wild excitement.  Ladies and Gentlemen it’s all about the ice-cream of life, which was so good and sweet but melted very fast.  What else it can be other than anyone’s child Hood days….

Childhood is very special for me. It is the best season of my life and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I have spent all my childhood in India growing up in semi urban areas along with nature and friends.

I can still hear that loud and long school bell which made all of friends to run wildly and madly. We were all over the place like honey bees shaken over a hive.  There are many moments that are still afresh even after many years.

 If I have remember any funny moments, it was during my young days, we used to go to pee together along with my friends in the urinal section; we used to watch and learn from each other how to shake that thing after we are done and before we zip it back. Learning shaking at an early age really helped all the boys greatly at a later point of time. We witnessed many more emotions during our school days

I have developed fear of public speaking at a very early age and my school provided a platform for it. There was rule in my school that everyone should read news in our Morning Prayer meetings to improve on speaking skills. I used to freeze to fear when I realized that my turn will be there after next 10 occurrences. My fear turned into physical shivering on the d-day of the assembly meeting.

Examinations of course provided an opportunity to experience a roller coaster ride for free.  During a roller coaster ride we feel anxious and nervous, when we are about to put on seat belts before take-off. During peak of the ride, we feel as if we are thrown out of world.  It’s a nice feeling of joy when we realize it’s the end of the ride. Similarly before start of the examinations, there used to be a feeling of curiosity of seating order to know my mate beside me in order to copy or to exchange answers, followed by nervousness looking at question paper. We were thrown out of the world when progress reports were shared. We used to be eager to know other ‘score than individuals. It’s a bad feeling when my friend scores fewer marks than me, its even worse feeling when he scores more. As every storm the night leaves a pleasant sight in the morning.  All the hardship during examinations resulted in a good 2 month break in the form of summer vacations.

Summer in India is a nightmare. Temperatures reach around 50 degrees; half the boiling point of water. That is the reason you see half of the Country Rivers drying up. Summer is very special for me as I used to visit my grandparents house. I used to write a letter by hand to my grandfather before I used to visit them. This is where my first love towards writing has developed. My Grandparents used to live in a small village surrounded by beautiful beaches. The place is a nature’s gift. I used to spend time on the terrace of their house looking at sun how it is being swallowed by sea, , listening to the high waves which hit the shore, observing galaxy of stars during night and waking up early to witness sunrise from the sea. We used to bath in sea on all the auspicious days to get more virtues. I still remember how we used to build sand buildings & forts, run behind crabs, hiding them and even daring to even put our fingers in their houses. Its fun to see fishing nets and fishermen, the way they carry big sharks on their shoulders after hunting.

Watching sea tides rising high even after falling low and constant urge to reach sky taught some good lessons in life.  Summer holidays also reminds me of 3 more things which are Mangoes, Melas & Many friends….

I can relate those days to a nice ice-cream and a good perfume. I did my best to taste the ice-cream till the last bite and relish the fragrance till the last drop. As every season ends with time, I couldn’t hold it longer. I wish if I was child again I would re-do all my mistakes, repeat all the mischief, and relate all the joy to purpose of my life. Every season also comes back again with time, and I feel it’s true   when I raise my kid, watch him playing with toys, time spent taking him for a stroll and observe his mischief. Thanks to life and thanks to audience.

 

New Thought

“During a power failure, you can either curse the darkness or choose to, light up a small candle. It might not brighten up everything; but it can act as a source for other small candles along the way. No surprise, if it ignites a big torch one day and becomes the primary reason for a large wild-fire. There are many instances in life where we see darkness in country, society, work, people…You have two options. Curse the darkness or light up a candle. I have decided to choose the second one from now...” ... Sriks

Managment Lessons on Road

He starts his day when most of us are asleep, travelling listlessly helping people. His eyes are always on the lookout for new people, one more person, one MORE person, ONE MORE person like hungry lion hunting on a group of rabbits. He unites people from different classes and economic backgrounds during his work. He is the king on the road .He has got style of a Rajanikanth and the skill of a  James bond .He has a brown apron to wear on and a well decorated auto which resembles & competes with  a Nano. I am referring to auto drivers who help us to commute, travelling to even places where is there is no or limited public transportation. I term my speech Management lessons I have learnt looking at them.

       I am sure we all fear when it rains in Hyderabad not because we get wet but we have to wait in traffic. Not sure how many of us actually know that we on an average spend 10 days every year either waiting or struck in traffic. Many of us just wait for the traffic to be cleared or a green signal to be flashed, but an auto driver always thinks out box in a complex situation.  How many times we have seen him to be innovative by discovering new routes on the fly and then leading others to follow him in the new route. He always sees a hope in the dark, a way in a deadlock, and a smile on Manmohan Singh. It tells us, whenever you are disappointed, disheartened and dejected, when you are pushed to the wall, please don’t lose hope but discover different ways and am sure you will find light & delight in your fight.

By design an auto has to carry 3-4 people, but by default it carries 7 passengers + 1 pilot, which can even astonish makers of it.  If you seen tamil movie mike,madan kamaraju movie where you got confused with who is who,you will have similar difficulty to identify driver  as there will be  4 people  always sitting in the front,but our pliot is always tilted to extreme ends during driving. Imagine you sitting in a jam packed auto where you not only can smell others sweat and breath but also their greed for extra space. In this setup our pilot surprises us by stopping to a hand-way request in the journey. He requests us to adjust so as to accommodate new guest. With anger, resentment and eagerness you wonder how?  It’s possible by moving butts here and there and to make things simple pilot takes you on a pothole which automatically set things right. Little later, you see another hand-wave; you assume that is not for this auto,To your disbelief  & distrust ,you realize its meant for you when you hear to adjust again from your pilot. You now ask where the space is and why is this only visible to our hero and no one else.

It demonstrates that there is always a scope & room to be accommodative and receptive in life. It means in our fast paced busy life, it is possible to help little more to your spouse, to spend little more time with kid, to accept little more requests from your friends & family. It is possible, think about it as its relationships that count at the end of the day.

Most corporate have to observe him on his customer relationship management. An auto driver always sees that customer is first in any situation. He never denies any customer request whether to stop or to take in. He can go wildly & dangerously on the other way, like a school boy running over lunch bell, if someone waves a hand requesting his service. He can unmindfully stop on the middle of a road to comfort customer to reaching his place. He entertains people with nice music, papers of salman,shahrukh ,katrina, and help- line numbers; let’s not to forget his entertaining talk all along the way   which will be mostly first post on happening things in the city, reviews of newly released movies

He is a reliable person and Mr dependable when you have crunch of time as he always takes you on a shortest route which he explores continuously. It reminds us calls from top leaders to you reduce turn around time and be efficient. He implements our tradition to respect our women by reserving luxury seats to them. A back seat is for reserved for women. If you are male, you can start your journey comfortable on a corner of a back seat; shuffle to the middle when a beautiful lady comes in and later moving to other end as per need. When you disembark your journey, you actually realize that you were actually designated as his co-pilot where you helped him hand signals, sitting beside him in the front.

In the era where we normally don’t know who our neighbors are, an auto driver bonds us with strangers who have different needs but similar objective. He provides us a  small opportunity but definitely first step to make new friends ,meet new people and to blossom on new love stories. He exemplifies e how we can be innovative when pushed to wall,  how we can still be  accommodative & receptive in life  even after reaching our limits.  He also demonstrates on a real time how we can maintain our ethics and values even in small place or in a small living. I believe he is certainly a management guru on the road. Don’t you think so?

Marriage

It is the one thing; bachelors desire to jump into with lot of curiosity, hope and excitement. It’s the same thing married men think on getting out of it with detest, disdain and despise .It’s a beautiful memory for some and a night mare for many.  Every anniversary reminds us on the joyful and painful decisions that were taken in the past. It is a dirty picture which we all want to watch it desperately only to end up in criticizing or debating on it.  It’s all about marriage. Albert Einstein said “Men marry women with the hope they will never change, Women marry men with the hope they will change”. Invariably they are both disappointed.

One thing always attracts me in a wedding is the end part, where you see girl tearful and boy joyful. This is a reflexive moment for all of us, as you don’t see bride tearful again or the bridegroom cheerful again.  Courtesy to marriage, life changes radically & drastically for both men and women.

As wise person told:

Life before a marriage is always Ups. You do a “Push Up” to impress her, then you “Top-up” your mobile to “call her up”. You “meet-up” talk over “7-up” to “cheer-up”. You “blow-up” balloons and “take-up” the relationship  further.

Life after marriage is full of downs. She will be angry  on you “boiling down”. You ask her to “Calm down”, “chill down”, “cool down”,  atleast“sit down” at least. She hits you, and then you request her to “Slow-down”. You “tumble down” and eventually resulting in a “breakdown”

It’s easy to identify a bachelor isn’t it? He is always energetic, ever smiling. You can see him with a mobile, a fast track watch, wet gel on his hair. He prefers pulsar, and has 360 degree focus on the surroundings. He always worry that the back seat on the bike is vacant.

On the contrast, a married man is also easy to identify. He is mostly lost, always serious.  You always see him with a Tupper ware lunch box and a titan watch. He is pregnant with fat and trust Nuzen’s hair oil for hair growth. He prefers splendor bike and has only 90 degree focus. He was a he-man, superman and spider man but now he is a Doberman without a smile and a tail.. He now worries that there is no seat left for him on the bike as kids take front seat and the wife takes back seat.

It’s interesting to observe how both people look out at the same thing but with different perspective:

A bachelor thinks the best way to build up a relation, is to talk, talk &talk while married men believe in silence.

A bachelor drinks for pleasure, while married men drink out of pressure.

One respects Abdul Kalam for his wisdom, while other admires him for maintaining his freedom by not marrying.

A railway station is a best place to witness their differences. You can find married men come with lots of luggage & planning. A bachelor comes rushing in the last minute with just a laptop bag & a RAC ticket. Married men read magazines such as “India today” and buy best seller books such as “How to stay calm & cool and not regretting on past decisions”. Bachelor reads magazines such as “women era & women world, women’s health” magazines and buys best seller book s “How to impress women”, “How to get women of dreams”.

It’s not that they disagree in everything; there is one thing they stand united. Both of them remember only Katrina and forget slice in a slice add and watch only Aishwarya in ignoring Lux in a soap add.

It’s that only bachelors have fun,married men also have it but they don’t reveal it.

 A Bachelor’s life is like a perfume, nice but shorter with time. Married life is like a wine, its gets better with time.

A marriage is same as walking on a fire before a temple to get virtue or eating a neem leaf for better health. We only talk about the heat and bitterness, but fail to discuss on their virtues and benefits. There is no gain without pain. In a sea journey, you need to weather the storm, withstand the tide, to land on a beautiful island. It helps exploring your potential, gaining maturity and revealing your purpose and responsibility in life. Don’t fear looking at the honeybees, there is a sweet honey behind it, don’t worry of the thorns of the rose plant, there is a beautiful flower above it. Explore experience and enjoy beauty of marriage all by yourself!!! Like me

Innovations & Imaginations

No island would have been discovered if people were worried to leave their sight of the shore. It exemplifies their courage to step out of comfort zone and their unquenchable thirst to explore more. We have witnessed great innovations ranging from mobiles to automobiles, penicillin’s to pen drives, telegraphs to televisions, notebook to face book. All these are different by nature and need but they have one thing in common. They were constantly changing.

This is proven in the case Bajaj in early 80s which enjoyed its market leadership in scooter manufacturing .There were times when customer has to wait for more than a year after booking to own it. The company would have vanished by now if they were complacent & happy with just scooters business. They were threatened to extinction by their rivals with innovation of motor bikes which were more stylish and fuel efficient.

 Imagine a youngster going on a pleasure trip with her GF on a scooter. Driving a scooter is easy but kick starting is a nightmare. In fact, you don’t really find any difference between kick starting a scooter or an auto, except that scooter uses stepper to kick start and auto uses hand lever. Both need at least 10 kicks to start. A scooter is even worse than an auto, as sometimes you need to tilt it to the extreme end to ignite.

 Imagine how embarrassing it would be to the young boy before his GF and how shameful If it didn’t start in spite of doing all circus. It’s like watching Dellhi Belly movie with parents. A scooter is actually meant for a family where you have a wife, two children and 3 balloons as in Hamara bajaj advertisement. It is certainly not meant for a youngster where you find a distance of 1KM between two seats where she will be sitting sideways holding sidebar tightly to prevent from falling. How can we expect a relationship to be blossom in this setup, where she doesn’t even bother who is driving?

Bike of course has brought some cheer into their lives, it not only has united two seats, but also made rear seat inclined, which means she can hold him instead of bar to prevent  from falling. To add more pleasure it is supplemented with disc brake. It’s fun driving a bike and even more fun when stopping it.  With changing times and trend, Bajaj has no choice but to discover pulsar; rest is history.

Definitely we wouldn’t have enjoyed mobile if we were satisfied Landlines, digital cameras would have been existed if we are happy with film cameras. It’s the passion to think afresh, helped world to evolve better and better.

I have few imaginations which will encourage us to live better.

a)      Technology which helps us in traffic – wouldn’t it be great if we have   aerial cable cars in the city to commute. It’s same as MMTS but they are not running on road but hanging in the skies. Imagine we all go over a ladder to board on cable car which means just 5 minutes journey from secunderabad to Hitech city. Similarly if we have provision for our cars to fly when we are struck in traffic for few minutes. If every car fly at the same time, it’s still ok as you can now travel by road like before J

b)      Scanning & streaming devices – Imagine a scenario where you were stand outside theathre and just show a device towards it, you then get information on the shows playing and their availability. If the show is full, you can movie by just streaming on it on to your device by standing in front of the theatre.

c)       Mobiles without batteries/borrowing charge – Will there be a day where we can borrow Battery charge by just SMS like in recharging?

d)      Conveyer belt in pilgrimages - Everybody can stand on it demarcated with small barricades and moves at small pace. This can prevent jostling and stampeding :-)

We are lucky to witness and experience great innovations so far, but its only a tip of a iceberg. The real beauty is still unseen, unexplored and unutilized. There is always a sachin after sunil,illena after sridevi and dhoni after sourav reminding us that its not the dead end, but branching new route from there to take on newer heights and horizons. Lets continue to innovate and imagine to realize our dreams. A day will soon arrive where school books will have to reprint their history chapters with our innovations and science chapters with our imaginations

 

Inequity- NORM

Inequity, the norm.

/****** Truly inspired by one gentlemen speech. Not my creativity,just referencing*******/

I would like to perform a little survey before I begin.

By a pure show of hands may I ask? 

How many of you have been to a school with just one bathroom?

How many of you ever studied in a school that had no proper teachers, and you had to learn a subject on your own?

How many of you were asked during your childhood to leave school and work instead?

It may shock you to know that in a country as large as this, you form less than 5 % of the entire demographic of India.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I term my speech “Inequity the norm”

All of you are aware of the extremes that govern this country from the below freezing temperatures of Kashmir to the sultry hot weather of the metropolis Chennai. We treasure our diversity from the south, the North or even from the North east. But as a country we face a much harsher difference and that is of Educational inequity.

In a country that boasts some of the best educational institutions in the world; it is perhaps a macabre form of irony that many of our schools in the sprawling metropolises like Mumbai and Delhi lack teachers let alone facilities like labs.

The majority of children these days are not tech savvy; they don’t log on to facebook and tweet about everything in their lives. The truth is the majority of the children of our country will not even reach the class of 10. Many children are forced to leave school for work or other such reasons.

From statistics obtained from surveys conducted allover India, the truth is as follows:

10 out of a 100 children will never go to school

50 % of those children will never reach class 5

Of those who do reach class 5, 90% will not reach class 10.

This in comparison to less than 5% of us that managed to go through school and on to college should seem utterly outrageous. The question all of us must ask is “Why is there so much difference?”

The answer is that these children are the products of our social system that divides us as rich or poor, from a higher caste or from a lower caste. These children do not finish school because they were never given the opportunity or the means to continue their education. The Government and lower income school systems are inadequate. From another survey that was conducted 1 out 4 teachers in such schools is absent on any day. And of those present only 50% of them are working at any given point of time. Being part of organizations that strive to achieve service excellence it should be appalling that such dereliction of duty not only exists in our system but is rampant. Apart from bad schools many socio economic factors such as child marriages stop a child from studying.  

Inequity in Education is a norm not at exception. It exists and is ever growing. We are aware of what are the many causes of this inequity. What we need now are solutions innovative ones that are singularly aimed at bridging the gap. This need is urgent because education can ensure a higher standard of living. Education is the way to spell the end of radical ideologies that seem to permeate through our society today. But most importantly education is the way for a country of a population of more than one billion to perform to its fullest potential.

I will leave you with a quote from Albert Einstein “We can't solve problems by using the  same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”