Chak De India !

With all due credit to my cricket crazy fiancée, I have travelled quite a distance in this road full of bats and balls :)  Yay....India had stopped today and our team held the flag high. The bond that binds all Indians and our neighbours alike around the globe is this game of cricket. The saying that "cricket is a religion and Sachin is a God" was crystal clear seeing the euphoria and madness around every nook and corner of the country. 

We have etched our names in history. The atmosphere is vibrant and I can see smiles all around me :) 

Chak De India ! Bring back the cup. Let history repeat itself ! :) 

An ocean of smiles

Today was a great day. I had been to an orphanage nearby to spend some time with the kids. Though I have been to an old age home but travelling to a home full of kids was quite an enriching experience. As soon as I reached there, I was greeted with curious kids and lots of smiles. 

There were about 25-30 kids who were taken into shelter by a noble man who runs this home. There were kids of different ages but the enthusiasm in them was amazing and common. During my few hours, I hardly saw someone who was sad. They were full of hope and positivity. We started playing few games and they were trying to encourage each other to play. When a second game started, I saw the few elder guys sending the folks who did not get a chance to play. The youngest one aged 3 years agreed to come into my arms easily without any conditions :) 

They might not be fortunate to be in a family but the fact that they have become each others support system is very heartening . I was just sitting and watching them play so carelessly. Few kids came and hugged me. It was truly a jaadu ki jhapi and in its purest form :) I was actually engrossed and feeling sorry that such lovely kids had no family around. I was in Q&A with God asking him why such lovely kids were deprived of parents. 

It suddenly dawned on me that these folks were happy and full of smiles irrespective of their circumstances in life. They probably draw their initial basic values which are loving one another, giving , sharing , caring from these circumstances and will surely carry it for life. They carry an ocean of smiles and maybe few tears here and there.  I hope and pray that these kids will be successful someday. I pray that God blesses them with all the support that they need in life. 

They reiterated one of the greatest lessons...life is nothing but an ocean of smiles and you choose to run around the problems with a smile or sit sulking about your problems :) 

Clinical Vs Emotional

A certain incident at work has triggered a debate within myself. While I completely agree that one has to  avoid being too sensitive at work and try to take all the trials n tribulations of  in your stride, yet there are certain unanswered questions. I am not subscribing to be an emotional achar but still can take care not to kill your basic etiquette.

A not so great conversation with the senior management turned out to be an emotional turmoil within myself while the other person involved was pretty curt. A well wisher advised me that if you want to climb up the corporate ladder than you have to learn to detach yourself and not get impacted. I am definitely not the tear-jerking types where my eyes start welling up at each and every discussion. When somebody whom you respect talks otherwise, I do get worked up as the person involved is somebody whom I have always held in high esteem.

Its not an easy job managing young people who have stepped out of their colleges to make a career with us. The dynamics have changed, you can't be a big boss always and need to be someone they can open up to and yet have the same respect. Is it possible to do that by being devoid of emotions?

My personal opinion is that people are your greatest assets and if you are not emotional about certain things, you will always remain a boss to them. I have seen great leaders who were pretty composed about life threatening situations and yet managed not to show their ire on their sub-ordinates. Is it too much to ask in today's world? I do not know if people find that its cool to be clinical.

Everyone has a right to express their discontent but there is way to put things in the right perspective. When you start expecting such basic things, your maturity is questioned. It seems that if somebody is emotional about certain things, then they are not mature enough to handle.

Yes, I choose not to loose my emotional quotient in this bloody corporate world. If something hurts me, I will let the other person know about my feelings. I choose not to sulk within and indulge in petty politics to satisfy my so called ego. Yes...I would rather be called an emotional fool than a scrupulous person. I will do my bit to ensure that people do not loose faith in such tough times and growth is not measured by how emotional or clinical one is but by the quality of the work that one does.


Yes..I choose to remain a human. I guess robots will not be as clinical people can be :p


PS: The views expressed in this post are completely mine and do not intend to hurt anyone. I respect the fact each person will have their own perspective :)

A New Life..!!

He tread softly on a stormy day,

With lots of struggles that the path entailed.

He held on my hand,

During toughest of times without a sigh.

He made me smile,

With his jestful antics during the rocky times.

He showered his love,

With selfless thoughts,devoid of conditions.

He wiped my tears,

During all the long years with heart full of prayers.

He stood by my side,

With no fear of the worldly butchers.

He made me stand up,

With a faith that broken bridges of life will be rebuild.

He is an epitome of patience,

During all the swinging changes of my moods.

He brought me back,

With all his love from the deadly shallows of life.

He is no one but my new life :)

Life and HIS Blessings in its fullest form :)

Dream On..:)

As a child, I always thought that dreams were meant to be seen with closed eyes. I always wanted to pursue my management degree after grad school but the other pastures allured me into their womb. I got sucked into the humdrum of the corporate life with no time left for anything. One lousy afternoon, an email popped stating that my office was launching an executive education course in business management from IIMA and there was an entrance test. My eyes twinkled at the thought of getting a chance to pursue my dream. While I was super excited at the thought of drawing wells of knowledge from the professors, the thought of the test was pretty scary. I had been out of touch with books related to studies. I pulled myself together and wrote the test with little hope that I would get through the 100 questions. :)

To my surprise, I got an email that I was among the lucky folks who made it. Our induction was at the campus and the whole process shook me up from my present. The pedagogy followed was different. The learning had to be derived using your own intellect and the professors would facilitate. We burnt numerous midnight oils working through the cases and arriving at strategies cutting across different  verticals of the industries. The whole learning has been enriching and a different experience in the past 1 year. Time just flew by and the hunger for learning still continues.

As I walked up to the podium on my convocation, I was laughing to myself saying that " Dreams do come true and we should never stop dreaming" :)

A Prayer..

The news, sight and thought of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan has been very disturbing. Nature's fury unleashed in full throttle. Life is indeed short and we know not what will become of us tomorrow.

A heartfelt prayer that God gives strength to the families who have lost their loved ones and sail through this difficult time. A feeling that's not very good. There is unrest, destruction and strife all over the globe. 

All of us can do our bit to help the victims. Please do your bit in whatever form you can. Keep them in your prayers. The power of prayer is stronger than any tsunami and millions of prayer reaching HIM will surely help in getting things slowly back to normalcy if not anything else.

The Climb !

Yes, its the climb that's always is knocking at our doors. A woman has to traverse through different mountains through out her life and make it count each day.

The climb starts right from the day we are born. For all the lucky girls like me, the younger years are happy and carefree. Thanks to our parents who have always been proud to have a girl. Well life is not completely fair, there are places where female infanticide is still prevalent and a girl baby is considered to be unlucky. There are some strong girls who fight for their rights since the younger years and some who give it up easily.

The next stop is following your dreams. I ponder if everybody gets a chance or has the strength to keep chasing them till they achieve it. If I look around me, there are again few girls who have gone out and grabbed it. There are girls who are exceptionally talented but choose to let their dreams sleep as they think that its not for them. Wish I could whisper into their ears some magic and let them know that nothing is impossible.

We girls then graduate to being a wife or mother. An epitome of love, care, patience, understanding, strength is what we get to see in this phase. There are two sides to this coin as well as always is the case. The women manage work, home and kids in an incredible manner. They are wide awake from morning preparing their little ones for school then rush to work and again back to home for the family. I used to see my mom juggle between all the 3 spheres amazingly. I still dread the thought on how will I manage when I get to that situation :). But I guess, time will teach me how to go about it :) . So there are girls who lead a blessed life and there are few who face the brunt of abuse, domestic violence yet choose to be silent. There are some people who fight for themselves and its always an "uphill battle". I have seen women who have not raised their voice against the abuse for the sake of their children and quietly sacrificed their happiness. It does get tough when there are small kids involved. I have a different opinion but not gonna pen in this post. Nevertheless, its an unending climb.

The penultimate stage when the kids are all settled and happy with their lives. They are busy taking care of their grand children and spending their times with the family happily. If the kids do not stay nearby, they either

keep waiting for the holidays or choose to spend their time keeping themselves engaged. The climb in this stage is trying to accept the fact that she has a lot of time at hand and yet nothing much to do. The climb is fighting the loneliness in some unfortunate cases where she is all alone. The climb is to keep her self happy and keep walking.

"There's always gonna be another mountain

I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be a uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose
Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb"

Happy Women's Day to all the lovely women out there :)

Lost Yet Won

While I was rattling my brains to think of an apt event in history that left an impression in the minds of the people and historians. One of the great wars that India witnessed was the greatest war of Kalinga.

Kalinga was one of the biggest and prosperous kingdoms in the ancient India. It had everything that drew attention of the big guys in the region. It had a vast fertile plateau and great sea links covering a major part of the eastern India. Thus making it one of the sought after kingdoms in India due to both the location and the economic gains via the trading links. Kalinga while under the Magadha dynasty was under the Nanda rule. It broke its shackles to freedom when the Mauryas took over. It was great loss of the three Ps(Prestige, Power, Politics) for both the Magadhas and Mauryas.

The Cholas and Kalingas were strong forces who stood together in good and bad times. This helped ward off many of the forces of the other kingdoms who wanted to conquer Kalinga. Bindusara who was the ruler of the Mauryas lost the war that he waged to take over Kalinga. When Bindusara expired, Ashoka took over the throne and established himself as the King. His first aim was to invade Kalinga.

He declared war against Kalinga in 261 BC. This was Ashoka's first battle and meant a lot in terms of setting the ground for the future to come. The war was a blood bath with Kalinga completely destroyed beyond belief. There were thousands of deaths and the river which was known as the Daya Nadi was nothing but a strong stream of blood. The erstwhile rich kingdom was left with nothing but widows of the soldiers who fought the battles, orphans and homeless people. The war did no good to anybody but had a great impact on Ashoka. Ashoka was moved by the sight of the war and took an oath never to venture into such a territory. He turned to Buddhism. The remnants of the war still exist in the Dhauli hill where the war was fought.

It’s in the history of mankind where such a transformation took place when a cruel war turned a King into a saint. The Great Ashoka was human enough to realise the pain and destruction does not do any good to greater mankind. It’s my personal opinion that the war and its impact still lingers somewhere in the air of Kalinga now Odisha. A hope that such wars should never have a replay and the world should learn its lessons.

Upcoming Reorganization Changes to the Weekend!

5th March 2011 Circa (EarthView Reporters) :

The top management of Earth met in the COG (council of Gods) yesterday to discuss the reorganization of weekends and also the to discuss the lawsuit filed by Miss Giggles on the weeks that never ends. The decision taken by the COG will determine the future of millions of earthlings residing on the planet earth. In the recent years, there has been numerous pleas to reorganize the weekends and add Friday, Monday to Saturday and Sunday who currently manage most of the leisure activities. There has been reports of casualties where sad people who have been driven to classes and work over the weekend. The atrocities have been happening for a while and the earth goverments had chosen to ignore these incidents.

Miss Giggles had been fighting for this since her early days and finally got an audience with Mister God yesterday. Mister God has assured that the reorganization will be completed as soon as the Board of Planets agree to the changes.

Finally Mister God addresses the earthlings :

" My dear earthlings, you have to hang on and attend your classes. I am working with  COG to change the policy which will be rolled out soon. However, there will be few exceptions. The earthlings eligible for this policy need to complete 50 years of life with us".

Miss Giggles had no choice but to go and classes tomorrow. She needs to wait for few decades to enjoy the changes. Nevertheless, atleast there are people who would be enjoying their weekends :)

Oh What a Wonderful World....is it?

My journey into this world was filled with love and warmth. My mother's womb had all that was required for a happy existence and to top it up, I could feel the happiness around me all the time :). I came out and was
busy enjoying the attention and care from my family and friends. Wow...I was talking to myself and humming
my favourite song "What a wonderful world".
Life started inching ahead with me being able to run around the home and parks with friends of my age. I loved riding the tricycle around our neighbourhood. My dad n mom got me admitted to the school. I loved colours and play dough. Life was heavenly with mom's noodles and cartoons to keep me busy all the way. Mom told me that we should thank and pray to God every day. I had a big birthday bash with lots of fun and frolic when I turned 5. Dad and me used to play hide and seek when he got home early. Sundays were family picnic time. We used to go out and play till dusk.
Today when I peep through the window, I can see fires and peoples walking down the streets. I am very scared. Dad has not returned home since a week. Mommy has been crying all through the day. There is
no one at home to take care of us. I cannot go to play with my friends because mommy asked me not to go there. My school bus has not come to our home to pick me up. I hear loud noises from the outside. I run back to under the bed. Mommy told me to talk to God when I feel scared and He will take care of me.

"Dear God..Please take care of mommy, daddy and me. Can I come near you? Mommy says that the place where you live is full of children and we can play all the time. Please come and get all of us to you. "

I'm sure these thoughts will be resonating back to God from all the places where there has been unrest. How I wish that the world was the lovely picture that is painted in all story books. A few heartless people cause
grave impact to humanity and the larger world. There are things beyond the lust of power, politics and money.

I sincerely hope that we get to sing "Oh What a Wonderful World" in its true sense..!!

Little Miss Giggles !!!

                                           

The sound of the birdies chirping makes me giggle,

The smiling babies makes me giggle,

The mindless chatter with friends makes me giggle,

The reaction to my sometimes dumb questions makes me giggle,

The parking adventures at work makes me giggle,

The love radiating from family and friends makes me giggle,
The feeling of dreams being manifested makes me giggle,
  Aye...its me who giggles away at life :) 

The post may not make absolute sense but I was busy giggling seeing my story getting selected for the Chicken Soup Series which drove me to giggle a post :)