Make do (5 things - Week 96)

This conversation might be too less for your comfort and mine. I’m supposed to be on a bus heading back home in another three hours and I’m yet to finish my packing. And like most of my packing adventures, this had begun over 48 hours ago, and still in the end, I see myself short of my target. I don’t know how it happens, but I’m sure you would have felt the same too. If not you, I’ve thirty four other people over here going through the same.

This week has also been taxing. Even though the end of the program might bring joy in that manner, the eventual conclusion of the program has left many of us in tears quite literally. Even though we have had multiple ice breaking sessions in the previous three weeks, it was only now that we were getting to know each other better. As soon as it came to that, we have to leave each other, and be on our way to the different corners of the country, not knowing when or where we are going to meet again.

Such is always the twist of fate. Change in inevitable. But also unavoidable is the need to adapt to the change. After thoroughly exerting ourselves here for the past three weeks, we are now on our way to get back to our original life. We have been warned of the dangers ahead of us, and also been given advice and techniques on how to handle ourselves, if we find ourselves in such danger.

So, considering my emotional state and my pressing need to get back to packing, please accept this list of five recommended books for reading that I’ve received over the past three weeks as the 5 things for this week. Please excuse the jumbled nature of the list.

***

1. 7 habits of highly effective people

The author Stephen R. Covey presents a holistic, integrated, principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, service, and human dignity principles that give us the security to adapt to change and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates.Covey shows how to build the healthy relationships that are key to an effective life. This classic is well worth reading for its perspective and practical advice.

2. One minute manager

The one minute manager is a concise, easily read story that reveals three very practical secrets: One Minute Goals, One Minute Praisings, and One Minute Reprimands.The book also presents several studies in medicine and the behavioral sciences that clearly explain why these apparently simple methods work so well with so many people. By the book's end you will know how to apply them to your own situation and enjoy the benefits.That's why The one minute manager has continued to appear on business bestseller lists for more than two decades, and has become an international sensation

3. 20 crimes that shook India

Souvik Bhadra and Pingal Khan’s Red Handed – 20 Criminal Cases That Shook India, cannot be called a thriller since the twenty cases analysed in the slim paperback volume are well-known to most Indians. However, what makes it a worthwhile read is the analysis and comments that intersperse the well-known facts.

 4. The Shiva Trilogy

The mythological – historical – adventure – fiction series is all but immortalized as one of the trend changers amongst Indian books and Indian publishing as a whole. The series is creative, out-of-the-box and very much Indian.Amish Tripathi, the author of the Shiva trilogy, namely The Immortals of Meluha, The Secret of the Nagas and The Oath of the Vayuputras  needs to be applauded for three things One a brave attempt at mythology with descriptions of epic proportions,ahem!figuratively speaking.Second, characterizations and research- He is completely in sync with what and how the readers would want their heroes and antiheroes to be and has amplified the heroic in each of the characters, including even the mundane ones. Thirdly – His farsightedness as far as the calculations of the far reaching effects and impact of the book. 

5. A Hitchiker’s guide to the Galaxy

Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have") and a galaxy-full of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian, Zaphod's girlfriend (formally Tricia McMillan), whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student who is obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the year

***

So, that's all for this week then.

Have a great weekend!!

'til next week.

Glad to be up here (5 things - Week 95)

Well, that was an eventful week. So much has happened/is happening that I don't know where to begin. I finally overcame my fear of having roadside food. After the Jaundice attack of Nov 2013, there was a conscious decision from my side to stop having roadside food, as we can't sure of the source from which they are gathering the water they use. I kept the thought of questionable water fountains to one side and really enjoyed the bhel chat that I had on Wednesday. And there's no complaints of any kind, up until this moment.

Another thing I was reacquainted with this week was Information overload. Having been trained in the ways of absorbing such situations over the course of my engineering degree, I was subsequently involved in the process of de-learning the said techniques over the past four years. So, I hope you will be sympathetic to me when I make it known to you that I was subject to this apparent torture of Information overload.

At some point in time, the concept of information overload must have been dealt with care. It was a signal of danger, the execution of which might push a person over the edge. After all, there is a limit to the amount of matter that a person can mentally digest. Then, as the amount of information a person is supposed to know grew, grew the need to fill the vessels that much faster - by vessel I mean our empty heads.

With the penetration of technology in our daily life, the concept of Information overload has gained another perspective. If earlier you had to force someone into Information overload by making them sit for hours in a classroom, the tech products we use these days have made us willing subjects for the same procedure.

Even though Google brings only ten links in the first page when you search for something, the concept of getting lost in the various links on the multitude of pages must not be an alien concept to you. You start your journey searching for "How to make dumplings" and after an hour or so, you might be trying to understand the reasons behind the strained relationships between China and Japan.

In case you are wondering what kind of Information overload I was subjected to, I'll say that it was of the good kind. We had an exercise this week, in which each of us had to speak about a topic of our choice for five minutes or so. In the course of various discourses, I was glad to be at the receiving end of many a nugget of information - stuff that I couldn't wait to share with you over here. A feeling which brought back to me the original purpose of this blog - sharing what I learned this week.

So, that's exactly what I'm going to do. Hope you are ready for a classic "5 things I learned this week".

Shall we begin then??

***

1. Time bank

This was a concept shared by a friend of mine as he spoke. When you are born, you are given an account in an universal bank, which keeps track of the amount of time you have left in this life. There is no question of credit from any source, and there's a perennial debiting procedure going on. And you can never know what's your exact balance. The worst bank in the universe, right?

Well, we can't do much, but go with the flow. Everyone is subject to the same rules. We should just make sure that every second is used in the best possible manner.

2. Respect

The concept of respect is pretty much known to everyone. We have been told since we were little that we have to respect our elders, our seniors, our friends. But this friend of mine, who spoke today, had the opinion that there should not be any eligibility criteria in giving respect. No matter who is in front of you, it wouldn't hurt you one bit to give them respect.

3. Water flows from the sea to the river. Wait. Whaaaat!!??

Mind blowing right. Well, I knew that there's this theory of big bang, which resulted in the present universe. And that the universe is constantly expanding even now due that explosion which took place eons ago. What I didn't know was what would happen once the effects of the explosion would fizzle out. This friend of my mine came to speak about the same, and he shared the opinion of certain eminent scientists who feels that once the energy of the initial explosion is completely decimated, there would come a point in time, when time would start flowing back. That means that in that universe, I would be born by the procedure of death in this universe, and I would die by the procedure of birth in this universe. Weird, huh??

4. The science behind the customs

One of the best things about having non-south Indian food is the customary presence of a sweet dish at the end of the meal. And yesterday, one of my friends here had chosen to speak on the topic of the science behind Indian customs. I am planning to put through his entire content as a separate post, as it demands at least that much. Anyways, the reason about giving sweets at the end is to slow down the digestion process. And that is why we are usually asked not to eat it at the beginning of the meal.

5. Memories flash by

I've have to take credit for this one. I was lying on bed, feeling a little bit nostalgic about college days, when I realized that, no matter what, I couldn't make my mind play out the past in one continuous stream of images. It always has to be shown in flashes. An event which took hours to happen in the past, will be revisited by you now in a mere fraction of a second. Guess what they show in the movies are not real after all.

***

I haven't done an epilogue in ages, and today is good as any day to restart. I gave my speech today, and it was interesting to me because I got a feeling of how this conversation of ours is playing out in your mind. I chose the topic of "nothing" and chewed on ten minutes of my colleagues time with that. So, basically, it was like what I do here in the blog. I was able to view firsthand the reactions that I get from people. And I am happy to note that it is what I expect more often that not. Thank you for being such a wonderful audience.

***

So, that's all for this week then.

Have a great weekend!!

'til next week.

Resolutions (5 things - Week 94)

3 pm on this Saturday afternoon has myself sitting here on the bed. Yes, I’m one of those to whom a bed is not just a place to sleep in. It is someplace where I spend more than one third of my day, and hence, I prefer to bring some variety into the proceedings.

Anyways, as I was saying, I’m sitting here and searching for a topic to ponder about for today. I found some and now I’m going to let you choose from the following three options.

A. Food items from Delhi that I miss – because I had aloo paratta this morning and it has made me nostalgic.

B. Five words from English – because I am too lazy to go out and find some new stuff to write about.

C. Resolutions which have petered out – because I think it is a nice topic to talk about.

So, as you have decided, Option C is the way forward. I like the way you chose what I wanted to right about. And we will wait no longer and we’ll go straight into five not-necessarily New Year resolutions of mine which didn’t see February.

***

1. Personal gym

I’ve had friends going to the gym since I was in school. And I can say with pride that I didn’t bow into peer pressure. I chose to keep away and be my skinny, unhealthy self. But when I saw a senior at work bulk up over two months, prior to his marriage, in order to look good on the big day [and maybe for the night that followed that day], I realized that maybe I would have to do the same. So, as part of my New Year resolution of 2013, I decided to buy myself some weights and practice with them at home. Now, you might be thinking why I didn’t join any gym. I was too lazy to go through all those repetitions that the trainers force you to. I wanted to be control my exertions and be able to stop when I want.

And as I found out, I stopped soon enough.

2. Learning French

It’s very useful to learn a foreign language, said someone. And study German if you are going to because most of the good engineering companies are based in Germany, and it’ll give you an advantage. So, I decided to go and study the French language. Even though I was ready to invest my time into it, I wasn’t sure of investing financially, especially because the rates were so damn high.

So, I found some site on the internet which made you meet with people from around the world who wanted to learn some language, and in return they would teach you the one they know. I listed that I wanted to learn French, and listed English, Hindi and Malayalam as languages I knew.

One fine day, I got a mail. So, this lady from Canada who knows French wants to learn Malayalam. And more interesting was that she sent me the mail with snippets of it written in Malayalam. She had more than a basic control over the language.

We tried to make the mutual study work, but our time zones meant that either one of us had to way up early or stay up late. So we dropped the idea.

3. Writing something everyday

This was a middle of the year thing. One fine day, I decided that to force myself into writing, I’ll try to write something daily and publish it. You can see the ruins of forced semi-literature at http://thedailylore.blogspot.com/.

4. Watching Mindless TV serials

I meant stop watching mindless TV serials. Well, this was taken late last year. And thankfully, since I didn't stop watching them, I have one more point to add in this list.

5. Reading something everyday

You are supposed to pick up good habits from your better halves. So, I tried to pick this habit of all this year. And sadly, I can’t make sure that I read at least one chapter from a book every day, before I go to sleep. I need to binge read a book. I can’t consume it in installments.

I wonder how she does it though.

***

So, that's all for this week then. 

Have a great weekend!! 

'til next week.

Excuses (5 things - Week 93)

When a decision was made to port the outlet for my literary outpouring to another portal, I decided to put some serious thought into it. That was mostly because my last blog was named "The pasture of lunacy". Not the most inviting one, but for the sake of having a noticeable difference in title with respect to other blogs, I had gone ahead with something I subsequently regretted.

I know it's hard to believe that a substantial amount of time was spent on thinking up "Excuse me please", when the time came to christen the new blog. And you are right, it was more of a hunch naming. Mostly inspired from a famous Malayalam movie dialogue, the title was meant to indicate an act of seeking attention.

But over the weeks, I've found that the title is also symbolic of the many excuses that I give here. "Was busy with work at office", "was traveling for most parts of the week", "was so engrossed in falling in love that I forgot that I had to write a blog post", etc etc. The one for this week is that "I forgot I had to travel over the weekend, so I'm late for posting this".

Excuses of this kind have resulted in many changes here. The latest one saw the posting time delayed by 24 hours, to the midnight on Saturday. 

The funny thing about today is that I still haven't decided on what five things I'll be writing about. There had been this huge itch to scrap the "5 things" thing, but it's something I've shunned out cos it's the soul of the blog.

OK. After some quite thinking of 30 odd seconds, I've decided to enlighten you with five sentences, five quotes from the book laying on my lap

.

I have always been lucky in a way that I've always had people who nudged me towards excellent books. In fourth standard, the local librarian introduced me to the captivating stories of Enid Blyton. In eighth standard, my friend recommended me to read this book called "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone". And one month back, my brother took this book of the shelf and gave it to me and told me that this was nothing short of inspirational. And I agree.

So, for the "5 things" of this week, we'll be taking in the beauty of Paulo Coelho words from the "Manuscript found in Accra".

Shall we begin then??

***

1. "We do not agree about dates or about the best way to worship God, but in every other respect we live together in peace."

2. "What is knowledge? It isn't the absolute truth about life and death, but the thing that helps us to live and confront the challenges of day to day life...... It's the knowledge thatti lives in the hearts of men and women of good will."

3. "But even in cases of unrequited love, there is always hope that one day it'll be requited."

4. "Defeat comes when we fail to get something we very much want...... Defeat end when we launch into another battle. Failure has no end; it's a lifetime choice."

5. "We were born alone and we will die alone. But, while we are on this planet, we must accept and glorify our act of faith through other people. Community is life; and from it comes our capacity for survival."

***

So, that's all for this week then. 
Have a great weekend!! 
'til next week.

To the BANK!!! (5 things - Week 92)

After working three and a half years as an Electrical engineer, and three and a half months as an Embedded Engineer, I completed my switch to being an Officer with the Bank last week. And I mostly had people asking me "Why??" and "Will you be happy there??". It brought back memories of the time when I resigned my last job to pursue something similarly crazy. I had no intention to make that a thing by repeating it again this year, but the opportunity that presented before me was too good to forgo. And I chose it only after a very deliberate, unwritten dissertation.

I don't feel the need or the responsibility to defend my decision against the scrutiny of the public. Nor does the public have any right in demanding an explanation from me. I only had to convince three sets of people that this was the way forward for me. First was myself and her. Second was our family. And third, and most importantly, I had to convince the interview board, comprising of the top brass from SBI, that having me in their ranks was going to be fruitful for both of us. And as you can see, my arguments supporting my decision were convincing enough to land me the third career stream of my life.

All this has me placed at the Althara Branch of SBI in Thiruvananthapuram district for the next four months or so. And I have been working there for the past four days. Working might not be the right word for it though. Without my ID validation [to be completed by next Monday] and my basic training [to be completed by the end of the month], what I am currently doing is being a sponge. I am just taking in as much information regarding the working of the bank as I can.

Basically, I was a spectator watching from the customer side of the counter. Now, I'm watching the same story from the other side of the counter. It'll take me sometime to get accustomed to the requirements and rigours of the daily. But from whatever experiences that I've had, I love the job. It could be the new-ishness, which will rub off, but I doubt whether it is that.

It might seem like bragging, but I'm someone who loves helping people - those who have had real world interactions with me would concur. And since this job involves a lot of customer interaction, it is something I believe I will enjoy doing. I've already had the opportunity to assist people with opening of their accounts, helping them with their pension accounts, and hearing their grievances and directing them towards the concerned official. I know that this is not my job at the bank, but this first hand client interaction is something I think I'll always enjoy.

Then again, there are a few things we have to keep in mind while interacting with the customer, especially when they are as varied as the variety you'll get at a public bank. For this week's "5 things", we'll go through five basic skills that are to be sharpened for being a good servant to the public.

Shall we begin then??

***

1. Smile

First and foremost, greet everyone with a smile. No better way to start a conversation. If not for anything else, as someone mentioned to me, most people usually find it hard to get mad at a person who just smiled at them. 

2. Courtesy

Courtesy can be shown in various ways. Offering a seat, a pen; being courteous enough to respect each and everyone of them with the title 'Sir' or 'Madam'; speaking in a language comfortable to them; treating every customer equally; etc etc.

3. Willingness

A willingness to help, no matter what your position is. If you can't help directly, then it has to be made sure that proper directions are given so that help will be provided. If possible, do follow ups too.

4. Accountability

If you can help, then it's your duty to make sure that you act to help. The weight of accountability is something you have to be aware of.

5. Resourcefulness

So, you are supposed to help, you feel accountable to help, but for some unknown reason you can't. You have to be resourceful in these cases. Handle the customer as required so that they don't feel burdened, while making sure that proper help is provided as soon as can be. And as long as it is not illegal, go out of your way to help them.

***

All that I said above has been put into a single quote by this great man. Live by this quote, giving cent percent always, and you can work without guilt, no matter what the result is.

***

So, coming back to the initial topic, what do I do when people ask me why I joined the banking sector at this stage of my career?? I simply smile and say it is the right choice.

***

So, that's all for this week then.

Have a great weekend!!

'til next week.