chaikidukaan.com

Tag: notes to myself

  • A lot for a day!

    What a day it was today!!!!

    It started with reading an email of some wealth comparisons between India and Pakistan…

    Mukesh Ambani’s phenomenal wealth and the fact that he can buy all the companies listed on the Karanchi stock exchange and still would have a few billions left… about the aircraft he gifted his wife and the details of his 60 storey apartment complex, the details of which were doing rounds of the internet sometime back! It also talked about Sabeer Bhatia, and Sun Microsystems etc and how many Indians make it to the silicon valley

    so good head to head comparisons of what India’s wealth is about and what Pakistan’s wealth is about… needless to say India is rich, both in financial terms and people terms!!!

    Makes you proud right? good!

    And then I was talking to Deepak and Pritam about the disjoint value system in the US and how kids are raised here! some interesting discussions at that time too! About how Diwali is, and about how Holi is… about how there is something called Life that you can celebrate in India, and how even in a state fair you will feel disconnected with the thousands of people who surround you in the US! About how US is a bit different from Europe in terms of community and systems (mostly emotional and personal)

    And the day ended with watching “We Were Soldiers” based off of the Ia Drang Valley Battle in 1965 in the Vietnam War! I have been watching a few American war movies lately, and while these movies try to glorify almost everything they should about USA, there is a lot that you get to realise if you want to connect the dots!

    America and its soldiers have been in war (their own or adopted) for years… continuously! and almost every family in the USA would either know or be related to a active defense (I don’t think “defense” is a valid term here… “offense” is more like it) person, or a war veteran! They have all the reason to be bloody proud of their people…and that simply translates into being proud of the country! The people give a lot to the country, and the country gives it back to them, and the cycle continues! I am not saying bottlenecks do not exist here, or the leadership has always been good! I am not saying that its perfect the way it works either! I am saying that behind all the value system that I was talking about in the second part of this post, there is a much strong value system that connects almost every person to this “COUNTRY”. and that makes all the bloody difference!

    Back to India now… where I know of more bottlenecks than smooth flows of this pride… where praise of the country is limited to speeches, and some long lost books… where the independence is said to be the work of one man called the Gandhi, and people ignore people like Lala Lajpat Rai, Azad, Bhagat Singh, Bose with ease… where leaders like Mayawati ask the central government for a Rs.2000 grant to solve the power situation UP and spend Rs. 500 crore on statues (BITCH)… where leaders like Mamta Banerjee lead people to throw TATA out of West Bengal when it would have put WB on the World Map… where the youth craves for ipods and latest gadgets when just about 50 kms off the highway kids still have to walk 5 kms to the nearest school… where we lead the world in the number of terrorist groups operating in the country (27 out of the 34 groups which the Ministry of Home Affairs labels as Terrorist Organization under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, are home grown groups! another record actually) where we tend to forget the mumbai blasts, or the attack the Parliament, or the Delhi Diwali blasts, or 26/11 for the latest news on something more commercially viable and move on….

    where we claim to be proud of the country, but when it will come to identifying what you have done for this country, you might just be short of words and things!!!

    Don’t get me wrong!

    I am proud of India and its growth, and I feel bad about not knowing crap about its history and how its growing in leaps and bounds! I just feel helpless at times! and extremely sad about how this country might just collapse one day :'( and none of us might not be able to do anything about it!!!

    Before I end this post, I just want to remind myself that I am going to do whatever I can! Period!

    And if you have a comment on this post, I would appreciate if you do something about it too, in addition of just voicing your opinion!

    I should stop now! have a good day everyone!

  • …

    The best is yet to come!

    Have fun while its on its way !

  • Make Easy Choices…

    Get the best you can!

    Give the best you can!

    Live the best you can!

    Speak the best you can!

    Be the best you can!

  • …

    Keep the room cool, and the bed warm
    Keep the head cool, and the heart warm

  • Do these right, and not much will go wrong!

    1. Listen
    2. Speak
    3. Respect
    4. Give
    5. Express
    6. Un-clutter
    7. Smile
    8. Hug
    9. Kiss
    10. Enjoy

  • note

    There are days and people reminding you of home, make you miss it like crazy, and then make sure that you don’t feel away from home as well !!!

    Had such days and people here in Milwaukee this weekend !!!

  • Doesn’t make sense not to live for fun!

    A retired man moves near a junior high school. He spends the first few weeks of retirement in peace and quiet. However, when a new school year begins, three young boys beat on every trash can they encounter every day on their way home from school.

    Finally, the man decides to take action and walks out to meet the boys. He says, “You kids are a lot of fun. I’ll give you each a dollar if you’ll promise to come around every day and do your thing.” The kids continue to do a bang-up job on the trashcans.

    After a few days, the man tells the kids, “This recession’s really putting a big dent in my income. From now on, I’ll only be able to pay you 50 cents to beat on the cans.” The noisemakers are displeased, but they accept his offer.

    A few days later, the retiree approaches them again. “Look,” he says, “I haven’t received my Social Security check yet, so I’m not going to be able to pay more than 25 cents. Will that be OK?” “A freakin’ quarter?” the drum leader exclaims. “If you think we’re going to waste our time beating these cans around for a quarter, you’re nuts. We quit.”

    This was a joke that I got some days back on a RSS feed, but I did not laugh after reading this but it got me thinking instead…

    The moment we take away fun from what we do and start doing things for returns, the entire perception changes… now the effort is usually defined by the returns we are getting out of it and not by how much we enjoy doing it !!!

    When I put myself into this position, I see myself doing most of the things because I enjoy doing them and not because I want some returns to come from them… having said that I really like the returns too in forms of money or attention or praise, but the bottom line is that how much I enjoy doing it, does not change !

    I hope to continue living this way !

    Well the years start coming and they don’t stop coming
    Back to the rule and I hit the ground running
    Didn’t make sense not to live for fun
    Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb
    So much to do so much to see
    So what’s wrong with taking the back streets
    You’ll never know if you don’t go
    You’ll never shine if you don’t glow

    Smashmouth – All Star (One of my favorite tracks EVER)

  • Words Worth

    Words are like machines, over working or over using them diminishes the effect/ fulfillment of purpose over a period of time…


    Constant and over-considerate use of words like
    nice,
    good,
    great,
    amazing,
    wow,
    awesome,
    brilliant,
    that’s a nice thought,
    that is a very valid question,
    i understand what you are saying,
    i will be there for you,
    i love you,
    trust me,
    have faith,
    things will be alright,
    don’t worry,
    you are an idiot,
    you will never understand,
    be with me

    is something that I am not sure is the best thing to do..

    When I started working on computers, I was told that every key on the keyboard has a life and it will function only those many times… which basically means that if you have used a couple of keys too much over a period of time, you will not be able to use them anymore and that would in turn mean that your sentences would be incomplete, your codes would be erroneous, your programs would be faulty and results might be disastrous too !!! (I think they did not know that Ctrl C and Ctrl V works magic… but then what if the Ctrl key stops functioning? Can’t imagine a world without that)

    What if the same thing applies to a person too, he can use a certain set of words only an “x” number of times and after that he cannot use that word anymore… It might just help us evaluate what we speak before we do, and also increase the value attached to them !!! Also I need to earn my right to use the words… To start with I think this would apply to me first, I speak freely and too freely at times, but that can be misinterpreted because of multiple reasons… A better way, I guess, would be to hold on to words and take my time before I start talking again… tough? Yes. Doable? again yes? Thinking about it? Yes! Will I do it? Yes!

    But then some people say and believe that Silence is golden… I don’t really agree to it all the time… There are times when you gotta speak up and there are times when you gotta let something other than your words say what you wanted to say !!!


    So all I am saying is open your word tap wisely, there is only so much you are left with !!!

    Stills from : Harley Davidson Museum (Milwaukee); Millenium Park (Chicago); Daurala Railway Station, Meerut (UP,India)