2011... a year that I saw God's Blessings and Protection...
Feb 2011, I landed in San Fransisco (SFO) a hr late than scheduled arrival... I missed my connecting flight to PSP. I was stuck at SFO domestic airport. The next flight to Palm Springs was on the next day. What do I do? I do not even have a phone!. God helped me through a gentleman at a counter in the airport.. I found accommodation at a good deal in Radisson!..
An eventful day in March 2011.. I was all set to fly back home. Reached Palm springs airport much ahead on time and was waiting for my flight. Everything went on well till then. I got on my seat, and the plane was rolling. It was on the runway with full throttle...boom fired the engine, there was fire on the left wing.. the capt brought the craft to halt. In 20yrs of service, the airhosts had not heard the captain say to "Stay Put on Seat!". PSP Airport was closed, fire engines came over. The plane was escorted to the gate. What's the miracle here!... A take off cannot be aborted if the aircraft has reached the max speed. Just short of reaching the max speed the captain aborted take off. Just min left before Max speed could be reached. If we had to be on air and the engine fired.. imagine!!.. God was there!!
At the airport there was lot of confusion. Alaska does not operate another flight to SFO. I had to got to SFO and take my flight to Chennai via Dubai. Alaska could not help me but to put me on an American Airline flight to SFO from Los Angles (LAX). There was no option left. It was already close to 10 and the flight to SFO from LAX was at 12:30. From PSP to LA by road takes atleast 2hrs!!. I managed to get a taxi with the coupon Alaska gave me.. My God, I was tensed, will I be able to catch the flight!!!... I reached LA airport and ran to American.. the Gate was closed.. What do I do?!!! All I could was just pray and run... with heavy baggage I managed to reach Emirates desk in one part of the terminal..I ran and told them the problem. God helped me with a seat on Emirates from LA to Dubai.. and I reached Chennai safely as scheduled. I had to fight with a blown up aircraft, I had to fight with time, I had to fight with confusion, but God made the way.
In August 2011, God did a wonderful thing, a thing that my dad was looking up.. we had our Brother married. It was the only dream my dad had during his lifetime. God helped us on that. The wedding was so grand and everyone was surprised. It was God's hand there.
In September I wanted to buy a home. God helped me here. I had to fight a lot. I had to sell one house and buy another. My buyers could not meet the deadline as they promised. LIC played because of internal politics. But God say us through. Did the sale and got my cheque from LIC. I was happy as I had planned my new house registration just two days after my sale. But hold when I went to drop the cheque the name on cheque was correct but there was an issue with my account no that was typed in the cheque. I did not know what to do. The Manager could not help but God was able to through my buyer. Finally had my cheque cleared and bought the house in October 2011. I planned to get on my birthday but God had a plan and he gave the house 3 days later on October 13 instead. I really wonder how I got through this. A huge money involved. I didn't have any clues, no one to guide, had to fight alone but God was fighting for me! Praise be to him.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Thursday, October 06, 2011
Connecting the dotted lines - Steve Jobs
Text from Steve Jobs speech at Stanford University.
-----------------------------------------------------------
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky - I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me - I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
-----------------------------------------------------------
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky - I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me - I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Good bye Dad
.......
it was about 47 days since i saw my dad, 3 days since I spoke to him..... I asked him what he wanted me to buy for him from Dubai where I am visiting a customer.. its been 40 days since I landed in this desert..
he said nothing..... he just asked me to take care of myself and be careful....
Sept 2... was at work....my dad's face flashed on my mobile... it was him calling... sollunga appa responded on taking.. it was my brother....
Appa is dead...... that was the message my brother left..... what??? what are you saying..... yes he is no more.... an electric shock at home took him to the eternal home.....
i am broken... after mom had passed away in 1994 just after my standard 10 exams, it was my dad who had raised three of us... he had sacrificed all for us... he had my sister married off, got me a house and found a partner for me....he was with my brother... waiting all night to receive him from work after his shifts at night....
today he is no more...to live to die is for chirst.. my dad did it....
thanks to Aspire.. my company for arranging my return, Dinesh and Senthil were at the airport with a cab... i went home...kept bags, changed and rushed to my dad's place.....
now my dad is called a Body..... and was told postmortem is yet to happen...by 11 did they bring dad...for others the body....wrapped completely.... i thought atleast i could wear the watch i got for him from Dubai on his body... but couldn't.... he loved my childern a lot... danny specially.... but now....danny has no thatha to talk to...
placed in the coffin the hearse was set to leave at 2 to reach the church at 3... my dad was always punctual to church...and even now... he is.....carried towards the altar....
he was good to many, a leading voice in the singing at church, today everyone is singing he is not there to lead the songs...
do we have the right to ask God why?....
when mom left... not much i think i lost... was too young to know... but now...i have lived on the love and care of my dad...
a huge crowd followed..... we had enough flowers to trail the hearse.. from home to church and from church to cemetery... for about 20 kms....
at 4... we kissed him good bye..... he was placed to rest on the grave....the grave that my mom and dad now share....
gone..... once for all... never to return.......
God....... i am sorry...... it hurts!!!............
............now orphaned.........
it was about 47 days since i saw my dad, 3 days since I spoke to him..... I asked him what he wanted me to buy for him from Dubai where I am visiting a customer.. its been 40 days since I landed in this desert..
he said nothing..... he just asked me to take care of myself and be careful....
Sept 2... was at work....my dad's face flashed on my mobile... it was him calling... sollunga appa responded on taking.. it was my brother....
Appa is dead...... that was the message my brother left..... what??? what are you saying..... yes he is no more.... an electric shock at home took him to the eternal home.....
i am broken... after mom had passed away in 1994 just after my standard 10 exams, it was my dad who had raised three of us... he had sacrificed all for us... he had my sister married off, got me a house and found a partner for me....he was with my brother... waiting all night to receive him from work after his shifts at night....
today he is no more...to live to die is for chirst.. my dad did it....
thanks to Aspire.. my company for arranging my return, Dinesh and Senthil were at the airport with a cab... i went home...kept bags, changed and rushed to my dad's place.....
now my dad is called a Body..... and was told postmortem is yet to happen...by 11 did they bring dad...for others the body....wrapped completely.... i thought atleast i could wear the watch i got for him from Dubai on his body... but couldn't.... he loved my childern a lot... danny specially.... but now....danny has no thatha to talk to...
placed in the coffin the hearse was set to leave at 2 to reach the church at 3... my dad was always punctual to church...and even now... he is.....carried towards the altar....
he was good to many, a leading voice in the singing at church, today everyone is singing he is not there to lead the songs...
do we have the right to ask God why?....
when mom left... not much i think i lost... was too young to know... but now...i have lived on the love and care of my dad...
a huge crowd followed..... we had enough flowers to trail the hearse.. from home to church and from church to cemetery... for about 20 kms....
at 4... we kissed him good bye..... he was placed to rest on the grave....the grave that my mom and dad now share....
gone..... once for all... never to return.......
God....... i am sorry...... it hurts!!!............
............now orphaned.........
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Get2gether
The 15th instant of August 2008 was another remarkable day in our lives. It was the D Day a day which saw all old friends come over to cherish the golden days of our schooling. After careful planning we all were looking for this day just to meet up the old buddies... All Programmes for this day stood cancelled!!! yes this get together is most important of all...
By 11 am, most of the boys had come down. We had invited some of the teachers as well. 3 of them made it and honoured us by their presence. With photo shoots, video capturing, playing and chatting the day rolled. Despite his close relative having a myocardial infarction just before Jeyasingh could star for the gathering, he had his cousin admitted in the hospital and grabbed a few mins to meet up with us.
The old school days... that we cherished stood a fresh memory down the lane travelling over 14 years.. School, the first encounter one has with the world is made pleasant with wonderful friends we make during the course. These friends i knew from childhood.. as early as when we were 3 or 4 years. This friendship did not blossom out of money, fame, name, profession etc.,.. but out of pure love for each other.
We had sweet memories shared during the day. We had a nice lunch with chicken 65 and briyani. Chatting and bullying each other, we laughed each moment we spent. Many of us are already married and few have kids.. Could see each of them shining in their own field of work. Many are with software firms... being plump stands to testify it..
Robert as usual brough a nice cake!!!!.... Devi was the only girl who could make it towards the evening... Mrs Devaki our teacher came over in the evening and spent sometime with us. She forgot most of the names.. ofcourse we are not the only batch of students she taught... She was moved and was almost filled with tears..
It was wonderful day.. few of them missed out.. i hope they would make it to the next one... but when would the next one happen??? God knows!!!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Those Special Moments...
One wish of mine would be to get back those special moments..
Special moments of childhood, special moments when we hang out with our parents.. to beach, to church, to school...
Special moments from school days... the days when we sang as a choir in school... I remember... when was in KG... I was in choir. We had a performance during Christmas.. A friend of mine was next to me.... during the performance everyone were singing including I... but my friend next to me did not sing.. On the open mike I asked him.. why are u not singing? he said... I am playing Guitar... the entire crowd laughed... laughed at our innocence.. even today people laugh at us... laugh at us for being like a bull... working all life through..
I remember.. the days when we used to identify our class mates with their hand writing... today too we identify them by their numbers in our cell phone...
I remember... the days when we used to wait for the Games period... wow... how good those days were... we used to run... fall... get hurt and still.. continue to play... today... there is no time to even think of any play... even if u think so... u have the computers to...
I remember... the days when we used to sit for hours and learn for the exams... even today we continue our studies through distance education.. but... no time to study.... we write all our own stories.. of course a little matured stories than what we wrote in school exams..
I remember.. the day when my friend said that he is there to take the first rank and I should not even think of it... it was my new school... but then... God made me the 1st rank holder all the two years when i was in that school..
I remember.. the day when one of my friend slept in the class.. teacher asked other guys to wake him up.. these guys kicked him to wake him up.. he woke and the teacher asked him about the lesson he took.. he explained and at one point the teacher asked him.. "what next?" and this guy replied.. "that is when I slept"...
I remember.. the day when my professor praised my work and gave me 11 marks out of 10..looks like a movie? nope it's not.. it happened... this is an example of God distinguishing his children..
I remember.. the days... the days when you cared for your friends.. loved to be with them.. loved to play...
I remember.. the day when we had to bid farewell to all our friends... @ school @ college... We collected autographs.... feelings were expressed... thanks and sorry’s were exchanged.. gifts were shared... moments that moved everyone... tears in our eyes... we hoped and promised to meet each other....
I remember... the day when our teacher used to say... "you can't be like this as you grow... you will have to part your friends"... we mocked at them saying we'll not be like that....
Today.... all those promises could not be kept.. all those special childhood moments gone... today we are all haunted by work, responsibility of the family... today we hardly find time even to give a call to that close friend of us... Days fly by.... even if we could collect all our friends for a gathering.. one or two don't make it... coz they are held up....
Should I get a wish... I wanna go back to the past and live those special moments...moments of real joy and fun we had.. moments of our innocence.. moments of our love for one another..
Forget the wish... would we even get to think of those moments.. oh boy...... no time for all that...!!!
Special moments of childhood, special moments when we hang out with our parents.. to beach, to church, to school...
Special moments from school days... the days when we sang as a choir in school... I remember... when was in KG... I was in choir. We had a performance during Christmas.. A friend of mine was next to me.... during the performance everyone were singing including I... but my friend next to me did not sing.. On the open mike I asked him.. why are u not singing? he said... I am playing Guitar... the entire crowd laughed... laughed at our innocence.. even today people laugh at us... laugh at us for being like a bull... working all life through..
I remember.. the days when we used to identify our class mates with their hand writing... today too we identify them by their numbers in our cell phone...
I remember... the days when we used to wait for the Games period... wow... how good those days were... we used to run... fall... get hurt and still.. continue to play... today... there is no time to even think of any play... even if u think so... u have the computers to...
I remember... the days when we used to sit for hours and learn for the exams... even today we continue our studies through distance education.. but... no time to study.... we write all our own stories.. of course a little matured stories than what we wrote in school exams..
I remember.. the day when my friend said that he is there to take the first rank and I should not even think of it... it was my new school... but then... God made me the 1st rank holder all the two years when i was in that school..
I remember.. the day when one of my friend slept in the class.. teacher asked other guys to wake him up.. these guys kicked him to wake him up.. he woke and the teacher asked him about the lesson he took.. he explained and at one point the teacher asked him.. "what next?" and this guy replied.. "that is when I slept"...
I remember.. the day when my professor praised my work and gave me 11 marks out of 10..looks like a movie? nope it's not.. it happened... this is an example of God distinguishing his children..
I remember.. the days... the days when you cared for your friends.. loved to be with them.. loved to play...
I remember.. the day when we had to bid farewell to all our friends... @ school @ college... We collected autographs.... feelings were expressed... thanks and sorry’s were exchanged.. gifts were shared... moments that moved everyone... tears in our eyes... we hoped and promised to meet each other....
I remember... the day when our teacher used to say... "you can't be like this as you grow... you will have to part your friends"... we mocked at them saying we'll not be like that....
Today.... all those promises could not be kept.. all those special childhood moments gone... today we are all haunted by work, responsibility of the family... today we hardly find time even to give a call to that close friend of us... Days fly by.... even if we could collect all our friends for a gathering.. one or two don't make it... coz they are held up....
Should I get a wish... I wanna go back to the past and live those special moments...moments of real joy and fun we had.. moments of our innocence.. moments of our love for one another..
Forget the wish... would we even get to think of those moments.. oh boy...... no time for all that...!!!
Friday, August 25, 2006
Manager Vs Leader
Though distinct Manager and Leader could walk hand in hand. Anyone could become Manager but not everyone can become a Leader. A Leader can be a good Manager whilst a Manager can inculcate Leadership in him/her.
To me a, manager or leader should set examples. Leading things to perfection and always finding ways to improve what is being done.
A good manager to me is a person who is able to manage things even when nobody is around. If in an absence of a clerk, a manager should be able to do clerical job. When there is no one to clean up the desk, the manager should be able to clean it up. Right from the job of the least person in the hierarchy to the top person a manager should be able to adapt himself/herself to it.
When a manager adapts or functions at any role in a hierarchy he becomes a leader. He sets example to others. This will lead to better productivity and a better culture. First a Manager should cultivate in himself is to be humble. Second he should be able to adapt things. Third the manager should be diligent. Fourth the manager should be perfect. Fifth manager should not complain things.
Born leaders are there. But we can also become leaders by a thirst wanting to do something better for all.
Humble yourself and you'll be a leader tomorrow.
To me a, manager or leader should set examples. Leading things to perfection and always finding ways to improve what is being done.
A good manager to me is a person who is able to manage things even when nobody is around. If in an absence of a clerk, a manager should be able to do clerical job. When there is no one to clean up the desk, the manager should be able to clean it up. Right from the job of the least person in the hierarchy to the top person a manager should be able to adapt himself/herself to it.
When a manager adapts or functions at any role in a hierarchy he becomes a leader. He sets example to others. This will lead to better productivity and a better culture. First a Manager should cultivate in himself is to be humble. Second he should be able to adapt things. Third the manager should be diligent. Fourth the manager should be perfect. Fifth manager should not complain things.
Born leaders are there. But we can also become leaders by a thirst wanting to do something better for all.
Humble yourself and you'll be a leader tomorrow.
Wat Nxt?
What Next?
I remember my final year @ college. I was talking with a friend of mine. Having done B.A Archaeology I was wondering what I would do next. We've crossed several mile stone's Xth, 12th and now a graduate degree. Now what does life have in store for me? I looked as if am at the top of a mountain and no path before.
Things started changing. God led me. I landed in a Marketing Job with a Computer Education company in Chennai. I month I served with them. I was even doing some part time work with a Ministry. I applied for jobs. Nothing came by. My friends got job with Pager companies but I was wandering here and there.
Then I landed in a Software Company as a Junior. I was true to work. God rose me. I moved to another department and climbed the corporate ladder in a short span of time. In just 4 yrs of my career I was part of the management team. I switched company after 5 yrs of service. Even in the new company God has rose me up in 6mnths time.
I learnt lessons from my own life. God is always there for us. He will surely uplift us in this earthly life. For him to work in us, we have to work. We have to be committed and dedicated to the work we do. Be true to what you do. As Bible says "Obey your masters". This will surely uplift one in his/her life.
Keep Praying!!
I remember my final year @ college. I was talking with a friend of mine. Having done B.A Archaeology I was wondering what I would do next. We've crossed several mile stone's Xth, 12th and now a graduate degree. Now what does life have in store for me? I looked as if am at the top of a mountain and no path before.
Things started changing. God led me. I landed in a Marketing Job with a Computer Education company in Chennai. I month I served with them. I was even doing some part time work with a Ministry. I applied for jobs. Nothing came by. My friends got job with Pager companies but I was wandering here and there.
Then I landed in a Software Company as a Junior. I was true to work. God rose me. I moved to another department and climbed the corporate ladder in a short span of time. In just 4 yrs of my career I was part of the management team. I switched company after 5 yrs of service. Even in the new company God has rose me up in 6mnths time.
I learnt lessons from my own life. God is always there for us. He will surely uplift us in this earthly life. For him to work in us, we have to work. We have to be committed and dedicated to the work we do. Be true to what you do. As Bible says "Obey your masters". This will surely uplift one in his/her life.
Keep Praying!!
Thursday, August 17, 2006
A Clay Pot
My friend and I, about 3 yrs back went to Dakshina Chitra on the outskirts of Chennai, India. This is a place where houses of ancient Southern India had been modeled and kept. We walked through all those beautiful houses.
My friend had her hand tried on pottery. The wheel spanned.. she held the clay in her hand...we expected a pot to come..but then... it was an invention...it wasn't a pot!!! Then the potter guided her and delà... a beautiful pot came out from the wheel.
This gave me a thought that drives our lives. God created us out of clay.. yes we are just mud that can be blown away. We try to make lives on our own and we end up in failure. But when we commit our lives to God the Father.. He’ll guide us through his Son Jesus Christ and like how the potter helped my friend come out with a beautiful pot, God will make our lives beautiful and worthy.
I have experienced this in my life. Not knowing what to do after college I looked up to God. It's he who has rose me up in life. At such a young age God gifted me with best of his blessings. If not for his guidance I would not have been this far. Just his grace has made me walk. He is so good. As it is said “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”
Only when you taste you'll know his love for you. Do nothing but just commit yourself and your plans to him. He will make it the best that you can ever imagine.
My friend had her hand tried on pottery. The wheel spanned.. she held the clay in her hand...we expected a pot to come..but then... it was an invention...it wasn't a pot!!! Then the potter guided her and delà... a beautiful pot came out from the wheel.
This gave me a thought that drives our lives. God created us out of clay.. yes we are just mud that can be blown away. We try to make lives on our own and we end up in failure. But when we commit our lives to God the Father.. He’ll guide us through his Son Jesus Christ and like how the potter helped my friend come out with a beautiful pot, God will make our lives beautiful and worthy.
I have experienced this in my life. Not knowing what to do after college I looked up to God. It's he who has rose me up in life. At such a young age God gifted me with best of his blessings. If not for his guidance I would not have been this far. Just his grace has made me walk. He is so good. As it is said “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”
Only when you taste you'll know his love for you. Do nothing but just commit yourself and your plans to him. He will make it the best that you can ever imagine.
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