Dedication

Be it the smallest task at home or an elaborate project at work, without dedication we cannot achieve much.While there are many theories trying to zero in on what ensures success, dedication is one quality that might find its way into most lists.

Recently, in the Times of India, there was an article about one Rabindranath Bhadra from Kolkata, who gets up at the crack of dawn, hurries through his daily rituals, grabs his lunch satchel and is off to work by 6 am. He returns after 8 pm from his work.

We might ask, "What's so great about that? A lot of people do that daily." Well, we wouldn't ask this question if we also knew that he has not missed a day of work since 1995 when he officially retired. And he does this extra work for free.

“I get my pension,’’ he explains, when asked whether he expects to get paid for his post-retirement work. Here is what they say about him at work “He works better than any regular employee. For him, there are no Sundays or holidays."

And guess what! His wife says “He feels ill if he stops working. We tried to stop him from following this gruelling routine but he became depressed and began to develop cardiac problems. He is very happy working 24x7,’’

Wow! That is one dedicated soul!

Move on

I was watching the movie Guru, by Maniratnam.

Powerful performance by Abhishek as Guru ...so powerful that Amitabh commented that his son has surpassed him in acting...well, the comment was received with mixed responses, obviously, and generally was taken as a promotional statement. ...and A.R.Rahman is magical.

I loved the scene where Guru's trusted deputy asks him, "Some one is throwing stones at us and you want us to just stand and watch?" ...for which Guru replies, "Don't just stand. Move on! Make progress in whatever you are doing!"

What a gem! Throughout the movie, Guru is portrayed with the same spirit...and many a times he says..."I am not capable of hearing the word No"

Just sat back and enjoyed the positive energy portrayed there.

The Empty Chair!

Here is a gem from http://www.attitudeiseverything.com

The Empty Chair!
Author Unknown

A man's daughter had asked the local minister to come and pray with her father. When the minister arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows. An empty chair sat beside his bed. The minister assumed that the old fellow had been informed of his visit. "I guess you were expecting me," he said. "No, who are you?" said the father.

The minister told him his name and then remarked, "I see the empty chair; I figured you knew I was going to show up." "Oh yeah, the chair," said the bedridden man. "Would you mind closing the door?" Puzzled, the minister shut the door. "I have never told anyone this, not even my daughter," said the man. But all of my life I have never known how to pray. At church I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it went right over my head." "I abandoned any attempt at prayer," the old man continued, "until one day about four years ago my best friend said to me, "Johnny, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus. Here is what I suggest." "Sit down in a chair; place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see Jesus on the chair. It's not spooky because he promised, "I'll be with you always." "Then just speak to him in the same way you're doing with me right now."

"So, I tried it and I've liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day. I'm careful though. If my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she'd either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm."

The minister was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old man to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with him, anointed him with oil, and returned to the church.

Two nights later the daughter called to tell the minister that her daddy had died that afternoon.

"Did he die in peace?" he asked.

"Yes, when I left the house about two o' clock, he called me over to his bedside, told me he loved me and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later, I found him dead. But there was something strange about his death. Apparently, just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on the chair beside the bed. What do you make of that?"

The minister wiped a tear from his eye and said, "I wish we could all go like that."

Management by Super Stars?

It was late in the night, on board the Kingfisher returning from Delhi. The dinner trays had just been cleared by the efficient crew and everyone was either smiling at The Great Indian Laughter Challenge on their TV screens or just started dozing off. I was lazily browsing through the newspaper when the above visual and the accompanying article in the Delhi edition of Hindustan Times shook me wide awake.



It went like this "Witnessing the resurgence of charismatic leadership in the Rajnikanth persona, the debate about the methods and madness of management by charisma has once again surfaced. Fenzied mobs crazy with their adulation for the leader, who is the star and the center of their universe. A hysteria that gripped Indians and non-Indians across the globe and created history."



Then the writer quotes names of famous leaders and notorious people who used their persona to move followers into action much like the flute of the pied piper and says the same is true of the Rajnikanth effect.



The writer emphasises "The need of the hour is for the saviour who will redeem the masses and restore faith in the system. We need to create a leader who creates followers."
One needs to read the full article to understand the writer's thought process supporting the above statement. It's just amazing :)


The concept linking super heroes with requirements of a great Leader is neatly illustrated under the areas of:


The authenticity
The Image
What the followers need
Tricks of the trade
The ethics debate


The author, Aneeta Madhok, Dean, Center for Human Resources, S.P.Jain Center of Management Academic City, Dubai, sure knows how to throw light into areas never imagined!

Focus on strengths

"It is not what you are that holds you back. It's what you think you're not." - Denis Waitley

What keeps most people from achieving is they spend too much time dwelling on their weaknesses and shortcomings instead of focusing on their gifts.

Ok. There is this story of tiny frogs ...

There once was a bunch of tiny frogs who arranged a climbing competition. The goal was to reach the top of a very high tower.

A big crowd had gathered around the tower to see the race and cheer on the contestants. The race began. No one in the crowd really believed the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower. Heard throughout the race were statements such as, “Oh, way too difficult,” “They will never make it to the top,” “Not a chance they will succeed,” and “The tower is too high.”

The tiny frogs began collapsing, one by one—except for those who, in a fresh tempo, were climbing higher and higher. The crowd continued to yell, “It is too difficult! No one will make it!” More tiny frogs got tired and gave up. But ONE continued to climb higher and higher. This one refused to give up!

At the end of the race, all had given up climbing the tower except for the one tiny frog who, after a big effort, was the only one who reached the top!

All of the other tiny frogs wanted to know how this one frog managed to do it. They asked him how he had found the strength to succeed and reach the goal.

It turned out that the winning frog was DEAF!!!

....recently this story attained 'star value' when Rajnikanth quoted it on stage! (Source- Ananda Vikatan- July 4)

How apt! This story is definitely the need of the hour for the entire Sivaji team considering the critical reviews of some section of people. Whatever the verdict is, I believe the individuals in the team have delivered on each of their strengths. The investment of all kinds - talent, people, money and above all sincerity- is visible throughout the film. Who is qualified to judge what is good or bad?

AVM or Shankar never made any show of attempting to do social service through this movie...they wanted to deliver an entertainer and they have done it in a way nobody has ever done before. Even the carpet bombing style of marketing of Sivaji is a novelty aimed at quickest return on investment and definitely not on creating social equality as the protagonist 'Sivaji' does in the movie. Remember the line 'the rich get richer, the poor get poorer' from the movie? Do we really expect the producers to dare go against this in real life?

A movie is a movie is a movie...take it or leave it. And from the looks of it, the takers are having a ball.

ச்சும்மா கதையைக் கேட்டாலே அதிருதுல்ல!

Tag on book

I am relatively new in blogspace and hence it is a pleasure to take my first tag from Shiva. That he also had to teach me what to do with it is another story! Thanks, Shiva.

So, I was tagged by Shiva

kodaihills showcases his talent as well as his popularity.

The book I am currently reading is Celebrating Silence, a collection of short speeches by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in India and abroad. The speeches are grouped under three chapters - The You that you want to change, The path of the goal that is you & You, God and Beyond.

The paragraph(last one as there are only three) on page 123 is from the section ‘Surrender’ under chapter ‘The path of the goal that is you.’

Often people think that surrender is a way to escape from responsibility so they end up blaming the Divine for all their problems. In fact, true surrender is taking full responsibility for everything. How? Take full responsibility and then pray for help. Surrender eventually leads you to self reliance because there is nothing other than the Self.

The preceding paragraph sets the tone for this.

Self-reliance requires enormous courage but surrender takes less courage. A person who cannot surrender cannot be self-reliant. Just as fifty dollars contain ten dollars, so self-reliance contains surrender. If you do not have a hundred dollars, you cannot have a thousand dollars. If you do not have enough courage to surrender, then it is impossible for you to be self-reliant. People who are afraid to surrender are simply fooling themselves, because even a little fear is detrimental to self-reliance.

My first exposure to Sri Sri Ravishankar and the Art of Living was while I was working in Pune. We had the Art of Living basic course in office premises and all of us started off in a fun way. The program changed a number of paradigms, to say the least. It had a huge impact on me and a number of my friends.. by the end of that week I was so alive.

The level of self awareness and sense of peace with myself were at the peak and even now, while writing about it, I can feel the raw energy... Ten days later we found ourselves in the vast police grounds of Aundh meditating amoung thousands of AOL enthusiasts. And the next day, we learnt later, he had a session with top CEOs at Symbiosis campus in about Corporate Governance!

Whenever I feel a bit low, a session or two of pranayam and meditation is all it takes to get back the peace within. And this book really connects.

I guess that would do for now or else I would go on and on. Now the sad part. At this point of time I don't have anyone to pass this tag onto. Guess I will have to wait out till my friends take my bait to enter blogspace.

The Bathtub Test

Recently I came across this one from a friend. Try it, see if you pass

It doesn't hurt to take a hard look at yourself from time to time, and this should help get you started.

During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director what the criterion was which defined whether or not a patient should be institutionalized. "Well," said the Director, "we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub."

"Oh, I understand," said the visitor. "A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup."

"No." said the Director, "A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?"

Positive FM

Today morning, in Radio City's Breakfast Show (one of the FM radio stations in Bangalore), the RJ was in a festive mood due to their sixth anniversary celebrations. Have the private FMs been around that long? A lot of people were calling in to say that they have been listening to this station right from day one. Every one was full of praises for the service and the RJs. Of course the callers will be rewarded with gift hampers today.

One person said he tunes in every day in the morning because it helps him to start the day in a very positive way. I wondered how. There must be some program on air every morning that conveys a positive note.

Then there was an item about funny rejoinders by 'Vasudev' who speaks as if he is about to have a bout of severe cough...all he said was " every rose has its thorns, every idli has its sambar...ha ha ha..." I seriously tried to look for a positive note in the idli as well as the sambhar. Is he trying to say 'everyone has his match'... or is it 'there is someone for everyone?'

Immediately the next segment began... Uncle Appukuttan Nair. This was something. I don't remeber the entire dialogue but this is somewhat close to what went on:

'Every one comes to Appukuttan Ungle! for advice...be it marriage or migraine...Siddiq had a problem with his girlfriend and she refused to sit on his bike. Siddiq was heart broken when he came to me. I told him, life is like a roller coaster. There will be ups and downs, alle? I told him, forget the smaller issues and look at the larger picture. You will not have any problems in life. Simble, no?' Now, that's a sound advice :)

Appukuttan then sang a couple of lines from hindi film songs ... pyar mein kabhi kabhi aisa hi hota hai...He did a fairly nice job. He continued, 'when I next saw Siddiq he was very happy driving around with his girl friend and cuddling upto her on the park bench. Always ask Appukuttan Ung(c)le, no?'

The delivery was loaded with a typical accent, you have already guessed which one, right?...very soft and easy...nice one.

Immediately after this another caller thanked the station for helping him clear his Engineering exams. Now, how did they do that? Even the RJ was a bit surprised!

Whatever they had achieved in the last six years, right now I am having a good time in the morning traffic.