Coach A1 berth no 9

6 months, it was after 6 months I was to going to my home. India had witnessed one of the worst summers in past 10 years, and finally the rain god gave in, monsoon had arrived. Unlike others, who chose to fly home, I chose to go by train. The whole train route from Mumbai to Ernakulum is one of the greenest routes one can ever travel through. Lush green mountains lost in clouds, long tunnels, and waterfalls, what more one could ask for. I reached station in time, checked for the platform number. During early morning hours traffic was less in Mumbai, but rain had started to show its effects, few place were already water logged. I reached the platform, started to search for my coach. A1 7, finally I sighed as I dropped my backpack on the seat. There was someone already, sitting right opposite to me. I couldn’t see her face completely; engrossed in her book she didn’t notice that i was there. Superman t-shirt, neatly tied hair, no makeup and big round eyes scanning her two smart phones. “Two smart phones?, aaj kal ek smart phone hi manage karna muhskil hai aur yaha do-do”, I thought in my mind. “From Kerala?” I asked her trying to break the ice. “Yes”, she nodded in reply. Since I studied in NIT Calicut, I could understand bit of Malayalam. I kept asking her questions, where she was going to, what she was doing, etc. She would reply and get back to her mobile or look outside. At times I felt I was acting like a jerk. I got up and went out. Standing by the door, I looked at a small kid selling wadapav. He had no proper footwear, but still nothing stopped him. I felt ashamed. Whole life we keep complaining about things which we don’t get, but some people without any regrets lead life with whatever they have. Engine whistle brought me back from my thoughts, train slowly started to move, and picking up speed, it rushed like a mad machine, leaving trees, vehicles, people and the city behind. I came back to my seat. I decided not to bother her and started to read my novel. “So where are you from?” she asked surprising me. I told her that I was originally from Mangalore and but then parents stay in Calicut. From then our conversation picked up. We talked about what professional problems we had, how much we felt were stuck in wrong professions, our childhood days, the national issues which were going on .In short span of time, we became good friends sharing almost everything which came to our mind. She was a perfect tomboy, but insanely pretty at times, especially when she smiled. I liked the fact that she was bold and that we shared common interests. They say time flies when you have a companion and it did. “Sir lunch order?” pantry boy asked interrupting our conversation. I looked at my watch it was already 12 in the afternoon. I ordered for lunch and went outside; sun was no-where to be seen. Dark clouds had turned day into night, making it difficult for one to guess the time. We sat down for lunch, she prefer the food she got it packed from home. Later from our conversation I learnt that even though she was a malayali, she was born and brought up in Mumbai, her Hindi was nothing less than perfect. She said she was travelling on duty and would get down at Madgaon. I looked at my watch; Madgaon was just 5 hours away. After lunch, we set our beds. I told her to wake me up before she gets down. I kept looking outside the window, it had started raining. The sound of rain droplets hitting the window plane was musical. I looked at her, she had already slept. I kept thinking about our conversation. I don’t know when I slept. Sudden rush of vendors woke me up. Train had stopped at a station. I looked at my watch, it was 5. She had gotten up and was busy on call. I went out and washed my face. Cold breeze hit me, almost vaporising the water on my face. 20 minutes, that’s all I had. After 20 minutes my life would be same again. Same old movies on laptop, novels to read. Yes, for first time I felt reading would be boring. Train started and soon picked up speed, gushing through tunnels. 20 minutes passed in a blink of an eye. Train had slowed down, indicating that next station was nearing. “To ask or not to ask” kept running in my mind. I wanted to be in touch with her, I wanted to ask her, her number. May be I would never find such good companion again. I kept trying guess what she was thinking looking at her face. She got down the train, we shook hands and bid ourselves goodbye. In matter of seconds, she disappeared in the crowd. Next day Early morning suprabhatam from temple broke my sleep. I got up and looked outside, sun was just rising. I looked at phone to check out messages. Company had already booked my return ticket. I opened the message and it read- A1 9 A broad smile spread over my face. I looked outside again, it had started to rain.

The cinderella story

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Scent of soil after the rain had brought a smile on her face. She was sitting beside the window, watching water drip off from the tip of a leaf. Chirping of birds and insects added to her delight. She always felt connected to the nature whenever she was lost in her thoughts. But today was different, in two days she would be leaving her college campus forever, today was her graduation day.From past one week, she was having mixed emotions, on one side there was a new world ,full of freedom and opportunities, and on the other, were the memories of best part of her life. She was going to miss everything, from late night girl talks, fun week, assignment submission, nightout before exams, college tests and most importantly those streets and malls where she used to roam with a person , who probably meant everything in her life.

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She closed her eyes to recollect that one very special day.

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Karan was looking at his watch, when his mobile rang.

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" Have you reached the entrance?" She asked catching her breath.

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"Yeah , but where are you?" I am so excited to meet you" he replied.

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Karan and smitha where meeting for the first time. He had only seen her in the college library and during college dance festivals. His eyes where constantly on turning of the road, waiting for her.And then, there was she. She looked perfect in blue top and white leggings. They roamed the whole city, enjoying the street food and shopping. Sometimes they would continously talk and sometimes both would remain silent. That day was very special for both them, because there after there was no turning back. Their dates became frequent ,they laughed together and sometimes even cried because of the silly fights. She never imagined that she would fall in love with someone. Like every girl dreams to have, she had her " Cinderella story" and story continues.

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The tale of two streams

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The girl at the library

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MISTY THOUGHTS

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A year ago, i learnt how to fly.

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And the reason is you :-)

Smile doesn’t stop coming on my face,.

Sands of Time

As I walk on the beach,.

You came back again :-)

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Bring out the leader in you

Leadership comes with passion, not with position- Maxwell

Today when I turn the pages of newspaper, I see in one or the other page the photo of a leader or a business man.  A leader who is either announcing the profit of   his company or a leader who launching a new political party. When I see these people i always dream to be one of them someday.

What makes them so different from others???

According to me the most important trait that defines a leader is that he/she always believes in himself/herself.  Most of us only dream, where as a leader both dreams and does everything to make his/her dream come true. Let me share an inspiring story of a leader.

He was born on December 28, 1932, at Chorwad, Gujarat, into a Modh family. His father was a school teacher. He started his entrepreneurial career by selling "bhajias" to pilgrims in Mount Girnar over the weekends.

After doing his matriculation at the age of 16, he moved to Aden, Yemen. He worked there as a gas-station attendant, and as a clerk in an oil company. So, sometime towards the end of 1958, he landed at Bombay with little money in his pocket and absolutely no connections except a letter of introduction from a Gujarati shopkeeper in Aden to his son living in a Bombay chawl to let him share his room. Soon after arriving in Bombay, he settled himself, his wife and son in a two-room chawl and launched himself as a trader in spice setting up office .All that his office had was a table, two chairs, a writing pad, a pen, an inkpot, a pitcher for storing drinking water and a few glasses. The office had no phone but he could make and receive calls on the phone of a next-door doctor paying him a small amount for every such call.

 He went on to establish his textile company in 1964 under the brand name “Vimal” and the World Bank applauded the brand as the best Polyester Cloth. Perceiving success, he established Reliance IndustriesLtd in 1970s. You must have guessed by now about whom i am speaking. It is none other than Dhirubhai Ambani alias Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani.

 What the Corporate Houses of Tatas, Birlas and Dalmiahs achieved and dominated over a period of a century, Dhirubhai Ambani could achieve within a short period with a razor like sharpness and business acumen. Dhirubhai Ambani proved to be a king in his diversification plans into Petro Chemicals, Energy, Power, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Capital Markets, retails and so on.

 RIL is now India's largest Private Sector with turnover over US$19.976 billion backed by a profit over US$2.03 billion. Fortune Global 500 featured RIL in 342nd rank in 2006. Forbes Global featured RIL at 295 spot in 2000. Chemtech and Chemical Engg.World gave the" Man of the Century” award in Nov 2000 to Dhirubhai Ambani. Dhirubhai won the “Dean’s Medal” of Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania in June 1998 for “Outstanding Leadership.

              

There are few distinctive characters that make a leader unique from others.

A leader must have a vision. A leader, let him/her be at any level, should have a vision. A vision towards which he/she can work together with his subordinates and achieve it.

A leader should always travel in an unexplored path.  It is a normal tendency for any leader to take up a well laid path because there is no much difficulty. But a leader should follow an unexplored path and set an example for others. He should have capability to not only do different things, but to do things differently.

A leader must believe in himself/herself and his team. He/she should have confidence in his/her team .one of the most important charcter of leader that makes him/her different from others.

Last but not the least, the most important characteristic of a leader is that, he should not only know how to manage success, but most importantly how to manage failure.

In 1973, APJ Abdul kalam was made project leader for the mission of putting Rohini satellite into the orbit. With help of management and man power, in august 1979 they set to launch the satellite into the orbit. Just few minutes before the launch, computer detected problem in control component, but however they bypassed the computer and launched the vehicle. Unfortunately, the satellite instead of getting into the orbit fell into Bay of Bengal. The whole mission had failed. Satish dhawan, the then chief of Indian space research organisation (ISRO) addressed the media and took the whole responsibility of failure and assured that the satellite would be launched successfully in span of 1 year.

It was in July 1980, Rohini was successfully launched into the orbit. At that time, Satish dhawan asked APJ Abdul kalam and his team to address the media and announce their successful launching of satellite into the orbit. Thus being a leader, when it came to failure, he took the responsibility of the failure, but when it came to success, he gave the credit to his team.

Every one of us dreams to be a leader. We have knowledge, team and management. Then what is it that is stopping us? It is the fear of failure that is holding us back. Failures are stepping stones for sucess.One must a keep always in his/her  mind that learning is always a continuous process and failures do not make anyone small. Great leaders have always faced failures several times and learnt from these failures.

India today needs young leaders, who believe in themselves and in the future of country. At the end if you ask me to brief it up in once sentence, it would be like this.

“We are never leaders by birth, we are leaders by ideas.”

                                                                                                             

I will wait.......

Every second I die, as the days of separation nearby.

A sense of numbness is taking over my mind and I am helpless.

I want to be alone, I want to die.

A part of me is dead and a part of me will always be alive.

With heavy heart I will wait, wait for right time.

If only i could go back in time, erase all my memory.

Live my life second time.

But for all the questions in my mind, I know the answers.

That the 2^nd chance cannot be taken, it has to be earned.

A part of me is dead and a part of me will always be alive.

With heavy heart I will wait, wait for right time.

Laughter: A tonic for happy life

With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die. — Abraham Lincoln

I always wonder when i see people, some smile, some try to smile, some pretend to smile and some don’t even smile. What is so different with life of these people?

The answer is there is nothing different in their lives. Difference is in the way these people look at their life. Each one of us has problems. It has never happened that none of us has ever faced problems in our lives.

Has it been ever happened to you that you have spent a day without laughing????? . Have you ever not felt lighter after laughing even though life is full of problems????? .Most of us will have the answer “NO”. Laughter has been known from generations as the best medicine .Laughter is a powerful antidote to stress, pain, and conflict. Nothing works faster or more dependably to bring your mind and body back into balance than a good laugh. Humour lightens your burdens, inspires hopes, connects you to others, and keeps you grounded, focused, and alert.

With so much power to heal and renew, the ability to laugh easily and frequently is a tremendous resource for surmounting problems, enhancing your relationships, and supporting both physical and emotional health.

§  A good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after.

§  Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease.

§  The body’s natural feel-good chemicals. Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain.

§  Laughter improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow, which can help protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.

Laughter makes you feel good. And the good feeling that you get when you laugh remains with you even after the laughter subsides. Humour helps you keep a positive, optimistic outlook through difficult situations, disappointments, and loss.

More than just a respite from sadness and pain, laughter gives you the courage and strength to find new sources of meaning and hope. Even in the most difficult of times, a laugh–or even simply a smile–can go a long way toward making you feel better. And laughter really is contagious—just hearing laughter primes your brain and readies you to smile and join in the fun.

Shared laughter is one of the most effective tools for keeping relationships fresh and exciting. All emotional sharing builds strong and lasting relationship bonds, but sharing laughter and play also adds joy, vitality, and resilience. And humour is a powerful and effective way to heal resentments, disagreements, and hurts. Laughter unites people during difficult times.

Incorporating more humour and play into your daily interactions can improve the quality of your love relationships— as well as your connections with co-workers, family members, and friends. Using humour and laughter in relationships allows you to:

§  . Humour gets you out of your head and away from your troubles.

§  Laughter helps you forget judgments, criticisms, and doubts.

§  Your fear of holding back and holding on are set aside.

§   Deeply felt emotions are allowed to rise to the surface.

Laughter is your birthright, a natural part of life that is innate and inborn. Infants begin smiling during the first weeks of life and laugh out loud within months of being born. Even if you did not grow up in a household where laughter was a common sound, you can learn to laugh at any stage of life.

Begin by setting aside special times to seek out humour and laughter, as you might with working out, and build from there. Eventually, you’ll want to incorporate humour and laughter into the fabric of your life, finding it naturally in everything you do.

Here are some ways to start:

§  Smiling is the beginning of laughter. Like laughter, it’s contagious. Pioneers in “laugh therapy,” find it’s possible to laugh without even experiencing a funny event. The same holds for smiling. When you look at someone or see something even mildly pleasing, practice smiling.

§  Literally make a list. The simple act of considering the good things in your life will distance you from negative thoughts that are a barrier to humour and laughter. When you’re in a state of sadness, you have further to travel to get to humour and laughter.

§  Sometimes humour and laughter are private, a shared joke among a small group, but usually not. More often, people are very happy to share something funny because it gives them an opportunity to laugh again and feed off the humour you find in it. When you hear laughter, seek it out and ask, “What’s funny?”

§  These are people who laugh easily–both at themselves and at life’s absurdities–and who routinely find the humour in everyday events. Their playful point of view and laughter are contagious.

One essential characteristic that helps us laugh is not taking ourselves too seriously. We’ve all known the classic tight-jawed sourpuss who takes everything with deathly seriousness and never laughs at anything. No fun there!

Some events are clearly sad and not occasions for laughter. But most events in life don’t carry an overwhelming sense of either sadness or delight. They fall into the gray zone of ordinary life–giving you the choice to laugh or not.

As laughter, humour, and play become an integrated part of your life, your creativity will flourish and new discoveries for playing with friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and loved ones will occur to you daily. Humour takes you to a higher place where you can view the world from a more relaxed, positive, creative, joyful, and balanced perspective.

At end of the day i always remember these sayings

Don’t take life so seriously,.... nobody does.

Take your life seriously..its your life..if you don’t who else will take it seriously.

These two saying even though being contrary, are true in their own way, it only depends on the situation.

So keep smiling and keep spreading smiles.

The two incidents that changed my life for ever

APJ Abdul kalam has being my inspiration from the day I have heard about him. His interest to 

promote innovate ideas and his heart touching poems that make him “Beautiful Human”rather than “Missile Man” urges me to share two most important incidents of my life which in some or the other way connect to the topics “ What can I give? “ and “how can I make my mother smile?” .So here I go.

WHAT CAN I GIVE???

I have been always “mama’s” boy. I always enjoy helping her in cooking, shopping and spending time with her. This incident happened during my during my semester vacation in July 2010. I was helping my mom in cooking and in the mean time we were sharing our views on how a engineer can change a society. She said me that she was always concerned about the heat which being lost from sides of gas stove burner and asked me whether I could do something about it. This question of her made me think a lot. It was day today problem which no one noticed. I took it as a challenge. 2 months later I finally found a solution to it. I designed a system that could trap the heat being lost from sides of the burner of gas stove and utilize it to heat water. A simple design using copper coil to trap the heat and utilize it to heat water.For me it was idea that could change a common man’s life. As cooking is daily process and we require hot water daily for bathing, this design would save electricity we use for heating water and at same time meet our hot water requirements.

I felt my idea worth spreading and hence I exhibited it during SDM UTSAV Science exhibition .Many people appreciated my idea and asked me whether I could install my design at their homes. The representatives of ISKCON hubli who visited out campus during SDM UTSAV, were also impressed by my idea and asked me to install my design in their Akshaya patra kitchens. I called up my mom and told how my idea was successful. It surely must have brought smile to my mom’s face.

But this is not the end. I submitted my idea under the green idea campaign “Take care take charge 2011” by Times Of India. My Idea was shortlisted among top 10 ideas of the state and I was given opportunity to present my idea in front eminent people and press. My idea was appreciated and I received a certificate of appreciation.

For my mom this meant that her son, who used naughtily play around her, had grown into a big boy and could always contribute something for the betterment of the society, but for me it was just a beginning. I am happy that even my final year engineering project is innovative in its own way and has been approved by Karnataka State Council of Science and Technology ( IISC, Bangalore). My dream of being “Engineer for the society” has just begun.

HOW CAN I MAKE MY MOTHER SMILE????

From my childhood days I have been very close to my mom. I always enjoy sharing my experiences with her. This incident occurred just after I joined my engineering college. I had chosen to study far from my home. It was a stuff decision for both, my parents and me, but I had decided to experience hostel life.

 In starting few days of my hostel life, I felt home sick. I called home twice a day. But as days went on I made new friends, I got busy with studies and hostel life. My frequency of calling home reduced from once in two days to almost once in a week. I never noticed that during my experience of my hostel life, I was going away from my family. But my mother always missed me. But she never expressed it to me as she thought I was busy in my college life and I was enjoying it.

It was only a month later that my mom broke the ice. She broke down on a call and expressed her concern for me. I was shocked and never realized that I was going away from my family. I felt very bad and guilty.

I feel this happens to every Indian at some or the other stage of life. But being an Indian, we are always more bound to our mother more than any other culture. That is why we symbolize anything holy as our mother. From that incident onwards, I decided that I would call home daily and share my experiences. I am happy that I am able to continue that till today and it gives me sense of happiness. I am proud to say

“I make my mother smile everyday”

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AND FINALLY ON 17TH OF MARCH 

MY DREAM CAME TRUE

My Answers my life

The last prompt in the 'Tea for two (and a piece of cake) Tuesdays" made me think a lot, even though the questions are simple, they in some or the other ways define me.Thank you Preeti Shenoy  for this beautiful prompt :)


1. If you had Rs.50,000 to just blow up (you have to spend it on YOURSELF. Giving to Charity or    buying gifts for others not allowed), what would you spend it on and why?


-If ever i had Rs 50,000 just to blow up, i would publish my novel as soon as possible ,because for me it's more than a dream.


2. Name three of your closest friends (not family or spouse) and say why you love them.


a) Saptarshi Baksi- He is just not a close friend, but my brother, whom i can always trust upon .He is the only person i have seen in my life, who always puts himself  in other shoes and thinks.I have immense respect for this guy.He always reminds of the saying " when god forgets to bind people in blood relations, he always makes them best buddies".


b) Prithvi rao- In everyone's life, there will be a friend with whom one can share all stupid jokes, fight on stupid reasons and tease endlessly, that friend in my life is Prithvi rao. I always feel  shamelessly  comfortable sharing all my secrets with her.


c) Tauheed - He is the one of my friends who always understands my nature, many people find me weird because i am moody, but he always understands my point of view of thinking and supports me. 


3. Name three books which have profoundly affected you and which you would recommend to everyone to read.
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a) Wings of fire
b) Ignited minds
c) Love Story by Erich Segal


4. If you know for certain that you can never ever fail, what would you attempt to do?
    -Start my own business firm and spread my business all across the globe.


5. What is THE ONE THING that you want very very badly?
   - I badly wana be world's richest person :-p
    
    

Tea for two and piece of me :-p

Tough from outside, but as soft as cake from inside.
Endlessly i search for feeling that can never change.
Admirer of beauty, i fall in love with beauty every second :-p

Careless about what world thinks about me,i do things which i want to do.
Amidst my anger and love, i  win what i want and i lose what i have.
King of thoughts, beggar of emotions .
End of the day, i am what i am.

Some dreams die young

Recently one of my  friends gave up his life by hanging himself .It was a shocking news for me.
I knew him from school and to my knowledge he was fun loving and active guy.I don't know what made him take such a drastic step.He was a NTSE scholar and  a bright student .It was only recently that he was not able to take up the engineering exam stress and had few backlogs. But that's no reason to end up one's life.
I have seen people who have got 3-4 backlogs, passing engineering with a job in their hand.

  In 2006, 5,857 students — or 16 a day — committed suicide across India due to exam stress. And these are just the official figures

[Source: TOI, March 2008, Report] 

95-100 people commit suicide in India every day

- And of these a whopping 40% are in the adolescent age group

[Source: CNN-IBN Report, Jan 13 2010] 

 20 students killed themselves every day in 2010

Some blame education system, some media and some blame parents for too much pressurizing their children to perform well. Whenever such sensitive topics come up in media, there is always blame game, but no solution.

Whenever i think about my friend i always feel 

"Some dream has died young"   

Patience is virtue of success

Hello everyone,
It has  been around a month i have started this blog. but unfortunately i have not been able to post anything .
I always love reading and writhing things that i experience, but i always kept blogging aside  , because i felt giving my academics more importance than anything, but i have learnt that academics is not 'the'only reason of success and happiness, doing what you love to do is real happiness.so here i go.

Yesterday i learnt a very important lesson in my life.
Hard work is not always immediately followed by success, you have to wait and have patience.In my one month GATE 2012 preparation, i lost many fun moments because i believe in sacrifice. I gave my 100%, but my GATE exam didn't go well.I was shocked and confused where i went wrong.But i am glad, i learnt a lesson that not every hard work is followed immediately  by success, you have to just wait, but it will surely fetch you success someday or the other.At and of the day, i always admire my good friends saying " Keep your eyes always open, each moment teach you a lesson ".