My Roomies

Varun, Me and Girish - My Room Mates During my MBA at Great Lakes in Chennai.

To All The Girls Who Never said yes to ME

3 Letters from Lord Ganesha

The First Letter from Lord Ganesha

Glitter, glint and gleam your temples. Clean them well.
These are the twinkle that is seen by those who do not see.
Guard the gilded throne of Siva's stall.
Keep it well lit and open.

No night doth fall upon His Holy Form.
He is the Sun, both cold and warm.

Piercing vision of deep, inner spinning wheels
pierces through the twinkle and the clinkle of your temple Ferris wheel.
These enjoy the darshan flooding out. Those caught in chain-like
discs of darker hours see only glitter and the flowers.

When we come, as puja calls, we hardly see those
who cannot see. We see those who can, clear and
crisp, their wasp-like form in the temple,
they adorn lovingly the floors.

I tell you this, Saivite brahmin souls,
have no fear to shine the sparkle all the year.
Gild the gilded forms anew so that your temples
appear just built. Appeal to every chakra wheel; one spins one and then the other.

Gild -- the base, the rudder, the anchor of it all -- doth stimulate.
And sound, the one that hears. Smell, the controller of the glands.
And so, when chakras spin all through,
your temple will be always new.

Once you realize that some see, and others do not condescend to kneel, but stand and look with open mouth as sight and sound rush in along with drainage from the bath, be not afraid to open wide the door. Those who enter will eventually prostrate on the floor.

Keep it clean, and gild and glint anew.
That is your job, what you have to do.

Love,
Lord Ganesha

---

The Second Letter from Lord Ganesha

Keep track of your paces, for your walk makes marks.
Each mark is a reward or a stumbling block.
Learn to look at the step you have made
and the step you have not made yet.
This brings you close to Me.
I'm not doing anything.
If I were any place, I would not be.
You are someplace, doing something. You are not.

Insofar as this is a fact, there then is some semblance of Me in you.
If you are not what you apparently are
and you keep track of your paces fore and aft in your mind,
the karma balancing out the dharma is nothing.

Always live as nothing,
and your mission is fulfilled immediately.
You do not have to live long, but live well while you live.
Be sum total at any point in time.

The mind through which you think you travel,
or of which you think you are, is not.
The awareness of which you think doth travel,
or which you think is aware, is not. Therefore, what is?

That is a mystery, to the mind, to awareness,
but can be solved by you and Me coming close together.
Let's do it now.

Love,
Lord Umaganesh

---

The Third Letter from Lord Ganesha

Softness comes when you are precise, concentrated,
with a sense of penuriousness.
The concentration of the intellect
comes from a vast, expansive ability accrued

which has brought an intricate intellect into usage.

Softness, therefore, and a demure countenance and approach
to life and associates must be accrued through these means.

If you are not soft in your intellect toward others,
refrain from speaking as well as thinking.
For the true intellect is accrued from within oneself,
and by listening to your guruji,
who stimulates the within of you for this to occur.

Obedience is the keynote here,
and the ravaging forces of emotion are rejected.
And I dismay as you retreat into the devilish worlds
in the plane beyond My sight.
I sit waiting for your return.

Because I am here, it all exists.
The pole holds the feathers that dance in
the wind of desire around it.

Therefore, the thing that we seek is
countenance, precision and self-effacement.
You know the rest. I wait for your return.

See Me first before each advent into another Lord.
I am the gatekeeper, the Mother that cares for you
and makes you just right for the Father.
I am the now that makes you ready for the then.
I am the dragon that scares away the untimely events in your life
due to the ignorance within your dharma.

I am the innovation of your karma,
if you come to Me, My Being, your Being,
when you get here, now.

See to this. I command you. I implore you.
I do puja to you by ringing My little bell in front of Me,
by eating a ball-like sweet goody and by lighting the fire of Siva,
My Father, in My Father, through My head,
burning at the top of My head, your head, burning there,
a flickering flame burning there on nothing
except the dross forces of your dharma,
the accumulation of your karma of this life,
burns away the top of your head,
My head, Our head.

Success on the path is assured for you
who have the good fortune to hear, to see, to read
or to have been told to this message,
is blessed by your good fortune,
is in tune with Me, your Self, and
I introduce you to realms beyond your limited vision
at this very moment.

Love,
Lord Ganesh

Inner Strength

Inner-Strength; Don't depend on others to give it to you-You have to find it yourself.
Then life will become like this:

Prayer

when each of us pray, how sincerely do we pray, how true are we to the prayer. when we are praying are we thinking about the lunch planned for that day, or some conversation we had with someone, or some inconsequential issue which is running through our heads.

Can't we spare one minute for the god who created this universe, and pray to him with all love and faith. I think we all must, take a minute, and pray to the good god up there every day, and i m sure you will be a more content person emotionally.

Love the way the dog is praying, so sincerely and with so much intensity, i wish the dog could pray for me also.

Dear God!!!

I Love the expression on this child's face.
Here are some of the words that come to my mind when i look at it...
*Prayer
*Faith
*Love
*Please Help Me

Dear God,
Please forgive me for all my sins, protect and care for me when i m in trouble, guide me through the decisions which i have to take, protect my family and my friends.
Cleanse me of all the sins that i think i have committed, knowingly or unknowingly.

Dear God, Dear God, Dear God.

what Animal are you?

what animal are you?

have you ever thought of it?

we as human beings have the amazing flexibility to be more than one animal at a time...

are you a lion? or a horse? or any other animal

well! here's my 2 pence worth. I believe that your emotional status determines your attitude which determines your character which determines the animal you are at that point of time...

also, please remember that no animal is bad or good, every animal has its own disadvantages and advantages....

I Like the regality that reflects in this Lion's eyes, he sees it all, stands tall, and faces the storm head on....

I Hate Luck!!!

What is this Good luck, Bad Luck Business?
what are Omens, freaking things....

you have an deadline coming soon, and suddenly something wrong happens, then you start believing that what was to happen will not, just because you have become unlucky.

This is something i believe in, "What has to happen will happen weather you like it or not", so live with it. Its called fate, and its pre-determined. We all come into this world believing that we can make our own destiny, true, agreed. but what we fail to realize is that our destiny is predetermined even before we start writing it.

what you think, what you say, when you say, how you say, who you say it to, even every single grain of rice that you put into your mouth is predetermined. you do not have a choice. your choices are predetermined, we; in our limited capacity believe that we have taken the choice based on our own conscious decisions, But this also is predetermined.

In a case like this, there is nothing called Luck, nothing called good or bad omen, it does not exist. they are all creations for us to understand and give reasons for why somethings happen and somethings do not.


what's predetermined, none of us will ever know until we actually go through the entire experience; emotionally and physically.

so i say again,

WHAT HAS TO HAPPEN WILL HAPPEN WEATHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT.

God bless us all...bless us that what's been written is good, and something which will bring harmony to your body and soul.

IQ + EQ = SQ

We all have heard of IQ, during my grandfathers age, it was believed that the person with the highest IQ was given more value and more respect. Sometime around the 80's it was a time when the EQ (emotional quotient) was brought into the picture. It was believed that due to the better education system and the opportunity for all to be able to learn, the IQ part seemed on the same plain, however the EQ was what's intrinsic, it was what differentiated one person's performance from the other.
Now, i wonder, should not one person also look at the SQ (Spiritual Quotient), to be able to see how the person handles the stress and touch scenarios in life.

Just a thought, i will be writing about the same in the near future too.

Are Brahmins the Dalits of today?

This was such a good read that could not resist but post it in my Blog.

At a time when the Congress government wants to raise the quota for Other Backward Classes to 49.5 per cent in private and public sectors, nobody talks about the plight of the upper castes. The public image of the Brahmins, for instance, is that of an affluent, pampered class. But is it so today?
There are 50 Sulabh Shauchalayas (public toilets) in Delhi; all of them are cleaned and looked after by Brahmins (this very welcome public institution was started by a Brahmin). A far cry from the elitist image that Brahmins have!
There are five to six Brahmins manning each Shauchalaya. They came to Delhi eight to ten years back looking for a source of income, as they were a minority in most of their villages, where Dalits are in majority (60 per cent to 65 per cent). In most villages in UP and Bihar, Dalits have a union which helps them secure jobs in villages.
Did you know that you also stumble upon a number of Brahmins working as coolies at Delhi's railway stations? One of them, Kripa Shankar Sharma, says while his daughter is doing her Bachelors in Science he is not sure if she will secure a job.
"Dalits often have five to six kids, but they are confident of placing them easily and well," he says. As a result, the Dalit population is increasing in villages. He adds: "Dalits are provided with housing, even their pigs have spaces; whereas there is no provision for gaushalas (cowsheds) for the cows of the Brahmins."
You also find Brahmin rickshaw pullers in Delhi. 50 per cent of Patel Nagar's rickshaw pullers are Brahmins who like their brethren have moved to the city looking for jobs for lack of employment opportunities and poor education in their villages.
Even after toiling the whole day, Vijay Pratap and Sidharth Tiwari, two Brahmin rickshaw pullers, say they are hardly able to make ends meet. These men make about Rs 100 to Rs 150 on an average every day from which they pay a daily rent of Rs 25 for their rickshaws and Rs 500 to Rs 600 towards the rent of their rooms which is shared by 3 to 4 people or their families.
Did you also know that most rickshaw pullers in Banaras are Brahmins?
This reverse discrimination is also found in bureaucracy and politics. Most of the intellectual Brahmin Tamil class has emigrated outside Tamil Nadu. Only 5 seats out of 600 in the combined UP and Bihar assembly are held by Brahmins -- the rest are in the hands of the Yadavs.
400,000 Brahmins of the Kashmir valley, the once respected Kashmiri Pandits, now live as refugees in their own country, sometimes in refugee camps in Jammu and Delhi in appalling conditions. But who gives a damn about them? Their vote bank is negligible.
And this is not limited to the North alone. 75 per cent of domestic help and cooks in Andhra Pradesh are Brahmins. A study of the Brahmin community in a district in Andhra Pradesh (Brahmins of India by J Radhakrishna, published by Chugh Publications) reveals that today all purohits live below the poverty line.
Eighty per cent of those surveyed stated that their poverty and traditional style of dress and hair (tuft) had made them the butt of ridicule. Financial constraints coupled with the existing system of reservations for the 'backward classes' prevented them from providing secular education to their children.
In fact, according to this study there has been an overall decline in the number of Brahmin students. With the average income of Brahmins being less than that of non-Brahmins, a high percentage of Brahmin students drop out at the intermediate level. In the 5 to 18 year age group, 44 per cent Brahmin students stopped education at the primary level and 36 per cent at the pre-matriculation level.
The study also found that 55 per cent of all Brahmins lived below the poverty line -- below a per capita income of Rs 650 a month. Since 45 per cent of the total population of India is officially stated to be below the poverty line it follows that the percentage of destitute Brahmins is 10 per cent higher than the all-India figure.
There is no reason to believe that the condition of Brahmins in other parts of the country is different. In this connection it would be revealing to quote the per capita income of various communities as stated by the Karnataka finance minister in the state assembly: Christians Rs 1,562, Vokkaligas Rs 914, Muslims Rs 794, Scheduled castes Rs 680, Scheduled Tribes Rs 577 and Brahmins Rs 537.
Appalling poverty compels many Brahmins to migrate to towns leading to spatial dispersal and consequent decline in their local influence and institutions. Brahmins initially turned to government jobs and modern occupations such as law and medicine. But preferential policies for the non-Brahmins have forced Brahmins to retreat in these spheres as well.
According to the Andhra Pradesh study, the largest percentage of Brahmins today are employed as domestic servants. The unemployment rate among them is as high as 75 per cent. Seventy percent of Brahmins are still relying on their hereditary vocation. There are hundreds of families that are surviving on just Rs 500 per month as priests in various temples (Department of Endowments statistics).
Priests are under tremendous difficulty today, sometimes even forced to beg for alms for survival. There are innumerable instances in which Brahmin priests who spent a lifetime studying Vedas are being ridiculed and disrespected.
At Tamil Nadu's Ranganathaswamy Temple, a priest's monthly salary is Rs 300 (Census Department studies) and a daily allowance of one measure of rice. The government staff at the same temple receive Rs 2,500 plus per month. But these facts have not modified the priests' reputation as 'haves' and as 'exploiters.' The destitution of Hindu priests has moved none, not even the parties known for Hindu sympathy.
The tragedy of modern India is that the combined votes of Dalits/OBC and Muslims are enough for any government to be elected. The Congress quickly cashed in on it after Independence, but probably no other government than Sonia Gandhi's has gone so far in shamelessly dividing Indian society for garnering votes.
The Indian government gives Rs 1,000 crores (Rs 10 billion) for salaries of imams in mosques and Rs 200 crores (Rs 2 billion) as Haj subsidies. But no such help is available to Brahmins and upper castes. As a result, not only the Brahmins, but also some of the other upper castes in the lower middle class are suffering in silence today, seeing the minorities slowly taking control of their majority.
Anti-Brahminism originated in, and still prospers in anti-Hindu circles. It is particularly welcome among Marxists, missionaries, Muslims, separatists and Christian-backed Dalit movements of different hues. When they attack Brahmins, their target is unmistakably Hinduism.
So the question has to be asked: are the Brahmins (and other upper castes) of yesterday becoming the Dalits of today?

Biblography:

Written by Francois Gautier, on www.rediff.com

shades of Glasses

A hundred years back, if there was an idea of a machine that would produce cold air, and said that I would have to pay for it, I probably would told that person that he needed a bath and would have tossed the idea aside. Today however there is a premium on the very same cool air that is produced by a machine.

Today, we see some ideas as being stupid, idiotic, or ridiculous, but have we ever thought that somewhere we are looking at that idea through a colored glass. A glass that has been colored by our experiences and ideas in their life;

Each one of us have a colored glass in front of us, through which we look at the world, the glass could have been colored through our experiences, emotions, and day to day lives that we live.

What-o-what could help us clean these glasses, leaving it clear and clean.

IT Karmchari

Yeah…..Work and More!!!

How many times have we said this to people who ask us the quintessential question – How is Life?

Well, I have been thinking about what life should hold for an Aam Hindusthani IT Worker.

Let’s first get the ideal scenario in perspective:

Mon – Fri: Pretty Routine,
Get Up, Exercise (Maybe), Travel to office, work, work, work, evening work, late evening traffic, home, shower, dinner, TV, sleep.

Hmmm… not too interesting, but, there’s nothing much that can be done on this front; except philosophically give in or start enjoying work more!

Sat-Sun: Sleep, Movie, Dinner out with the family, or maybe have a drink in some horribly expensive pub with jarring music, and badly dressed page 3 people,
Clean house, do up wardrobe etc, etc, etc….

Hey, By no means is this BAD, its great, we are lucky to be the .01% of the financial Diaspora of this great democratic country.

Anyway, what to do?

I m stuck…. I don’t really know.

To be able to do anything that is uncommon seems to be too much effort, or that there is no availability for any of this stuff, or is too expensive.

i was driving through one of the villages on the Medchal Highway, it was a Saturday, and I saw in an open ground, what they would call in telugu “ Santa” as in a bi-weekely market. Where you get to shop, barter cows, socialize, network and maybe check out the cute village bells from the neighboring villages.. heh!

Now, that was something to look forward to, to me, if I was a villager I would have looked forward to that,

Now, except for the occasional movie, I don’t know what else to look forward to….

I will keep my eyes open this week, to see what else can be done, within budget, and sure will be fun… and report back in a week….

What's the Greatest Motivator

I have always wondered, what’s the greatest motivator?

Is it …God as an entity, the devil, hell, pain, fear, religion, heaven, bliss,….what it is?

At a philosophical level – it could be anything; I guess it varies from individual to individual…

From a corporate standpoint, I believe its fear that works wonders….

I would like to clarify something here; fear need not always be bad, sometimes it is also good to be afraid;

As they say, the only thing that keeps you alive in a tough situation apart from hope is the fear of death; I m not saying that it ever has to get that extreme, however it’s a thought.

I say, fear is the greatest motivator, fear makes you a better worker, it makes you more alert, less lethargic, keeps you from drowning.

Now, the question is… how do we use this very powerful motivator and channel it in a positive way, into areas where required. An analogy I would like to use here is like; gasoline –is extremely volatile, flammable, however when used to fuel an engine, it becomes the very life and essence of it.

Just a thought….

I still oppose dictatorship and communism….

Cognizentian

Hello World!!!

Let us assume, you are sitting in a restaurant where, information is your food.

For the Starters & Main course:

Its that time of the year when, every associate who has worked his behind off and/or lazed it through the year start to show sudden bursts of energy, enthusiasm and try to stalk out their manager's (what i would like to call) AIR TIME.
Weather you have worked or not, weather you have spent time doing justice to the money that is being paid to you, mostly goes all out the window. Somehow all you want is a great review with an ever better raise.

hmmmm... unfair?

Absolutely!

Per Me, its a simple philosophy, all you have to do is do the work that you are supposed to do, a little more or a little less is acceptable... after all you are human. When i say this i do not mean that its only work and no FUN. The fun side if most definitely what should be done, its also part of your JOB.

All i would like to say is, stay calm, stay cool. You will get what you deserve, if not today tomorrow. I am not overly religious, but i would like to take assimilate and impart some of the Awesome pearls of wisdom that has come down to us through the channel called Religion.
Here i quote Sai Baba, he says that every person has to have two Qualities, and they are "Shraddha" and "saburi". What is means is "Respect" (in General for everything) and "Patience" (Towards Anything). I for one believe that these two qualities and a summation of them encompass most of what is agreed to in society as being "Good".

Coming back to the point of People getting reviewed - The point to take away here is firstly, respect what you have, there are crores of People out there who would give their left arm for what you have, yet you disrespect the entire function and look for something better. Secondly, Patience - You will get what you deserve, if not today tomorrow. Rome was not built in a day; Caesar did not become Caesar with one fist fight. I m sure you will know what I m speaking about....

Dessert:

I overheard someone say, "I wish we had a campus where everyone could work, we can have so much fun, NA ", to that I thought - Yea Right! Agreed!
If you are reading the blog, Friend, I’ll say; Try reading the Main sheet of the paper, not the last page of the supplement where they show ample stretches of skin partially covered by something worse, badly designed, designer wear.

Fun my Friend Is here and NOW!

to blog or not..

ok, i m officially psyched,
i seem to have writer's block, which i don't think i have ever had before.
can't seem to write anything, or think of anything.
what's wrong with me....

maybe i need some inspiration, positive inspiration....

i'll get back to ya all once i get that inspiration,

I am my own GrandFather

" I married a widow who had a grown-updaughter. my father, who visited us quite often, fell in love with mystep daughter and married her. hence, my father became my son-in-law,and my step-daughter became my mother. some months later, my wife gavebirth to a son, who became the brother in law of my father as well asmy uncle.

The wife of my father, that is my step daughter, also had a son.
thereby,i got a brother and at the same time a grandson. my wife is mygrandmother, since she is my mother's mother. hence, as i am my wife's husband and at the same time her step-grandson; in other words, i am my own grandfather. "

After a tough day's crappy work, this is the best one i have read...

WOW! its a Tuesday....

Its finally a tuesday, after a gruelling monday living through a party on sunday night. well the biggest of surprises was that "THE BOSS" came home for the first time.. did not think he would.... le me give you a small intro, Rajneet Kumar... he was my first manager, awsome person, probably the best manager in the world and learnt a lot from him.. total bindass character, get's cranky once in a while, but, hey, he's also human....bottom line, i'm a FAN!


some tips at work....

Be pally with the Boss!!!IT helps


hehe.. nice one ..i like it....

well,
if you are reading this, i m sure you know about the food chain, well there are not too many animals that end up at the end of the natural food chain ( i'm saying natural cause humans do it the unnatural way) well sharks as you all konw are at the end of the food chain, they do not get humted, there is no animal in the natural animal kingdom that is the shark's enemy....or predator

taking up from there, comparing it to the IT industry, who is the shark!!! think about it...
is it the CEO, but the CEO is also part of a pecking order, who is it, or is there no one at all....

Where's the real money!!!

have any of you thought about art, i mean this world is full of hungry people, people dying due to wars and the stuppidity of some of our world leaders, especially like the one ruling the most powerful country.
yet, there are people out there investing in art, investing billions of dollars. this got me thinking, why do they do this???
cant they go buy a car, or buy a plane or something, why ART?

so here i am looking at some real nice renissance paintings, and wait.. see the paintings yourself, and then think




here's another one


and another one

anyway, as i sit here and try and figure out how to save my taxes and have enough money to buy a nice car for my kid when and if i have one.... i fugure, if there is some jackass who is willing to pay a fortune for a painting, why not invest...

Join the Dark Side

that's me on the right corner, its just the starting. I m moving into the dark side. Bad guys have all the fun!!! so why the hell can't i be the bad guy. why should everyone want to be the good guy.

anyway, the picture here has my whole BA team

Starting from the left : Samana (Ali's Little Sister), Ali (BA with Cogni), Sarabjeet (BA with Cognizant), Sarabjeet's wife.
now the right file ME in front, rajas, his girlfriend, neelam, and pradeep.

Scary Shit

your in the middle of a war, in one of the battles, you seem to be on the backfoot, loose some men here and there and basically make some tactical mistakes. well that's ok. but what happenes when you are faced with what you think will be the battle that can win you the war, and know that your chances of winning are not great.

what do you do then, where do you pull the strength and the courage to go on, how do you get it...
and then we have to move to spirituality.. to keep ourselves sane.

but what if there was no spirituality, and only logic prevailed. do what makes sence and only what's right. IMAGINE.

the abstract painting that i have included at the top speaks of a sinking ship, in seas of blood.

Survival is a MUST, yet losing seems inavitable