Story of two old friends – Jags and Vicky

 met with Jags aka Jaggu dada aka bengali  first time some 17 years ago in my school . He was one of the biggest bully , I have encountered in school. At that time , He was taller and stronger than his peers .  He knew all kind of words which we even did not know the meaning at that time . Those words seems new in dictionary .. Only thing we knew that we are not supposed to ask their meaning from elders :)  . I was good student ... Life was going fine ... There were small - small fights over missing lunch box or pencil box lost or  summer vacations assignments missing but life was fun :)  ..
In 7th standard , on one fine day ... Jags and I got involved in a fight and I broke my leg :) .. Ha Ha ..  Jags and Bunny ( Pankaj Baniyawal , another bully)  dropped me at home instructing about code of conduct that i am not supposed to tell how it happened ....I reached home and told my sisters that It just happened while playing :) .. But my happiness were short lived as one of my  caring friend dropped home in evening and told whole incidence to my sister .. My sister went to school next day and told everything to Pricipal . Grrr .. I dont know why ???? :)  .. when class came to know about the complaint .. I became subject of shame in peers as I broke the bro's code of conducts ...... Jags was asked to come in staff room and I don’t  know what happened inside but  he came back with cool face that nothing happened in staff room ( Lyer :) ) .. I wish story ended here but it's not  :( ... Couple of my locality friend , got hold of Jags after school and gave him a little thrash . My friends did  not tell me about this .This might have given image boost  and ego satisfaction to my locality friend but it ignited the matter . On next day , when i reached school with broken leg .. I got to know whole incidence and Man.. I was become villain .. I remember , next day in assembly , my principal told " I will not tell the name of student..but one student who got his leg fractured asked outside people to resolve conflict .. This is wrong .. Talk with teachers .. Oppss looks the guts of 7th standard student ..Grrr " .. ... Yes .. Thanks Principi .. You did best effort to hide my identity ... All teachers saw me as they did not expect me that i could have done that ... I was thinking .. Yaar .. I got my leg fractured .. I did  not call any one .. and still i am getting  blamed ...... And during lunch recession , Jags was laughing like hell .. Making my wounds more severe :)
But after this incidence , Bully group stopped bullying me . I guess they were little bit impressed that my local friends involved in matter without my asking and moreover feeling guilty that i am coming school for whole 6 weeks with broken leg .. Other group did not like ( or scared ) with whole incidence ...... This was my first experience of changing group dynamic ism .  Jags and his friends  became my friends . I started helping them in assignments and in exams cheating .. They helped me in bunking classes by including me in Scouts or Sports practice  . Jags and I became good friends . I still remember , we used to go to Priya  and used to stand in long queues for 12 Rs ticket . I used to run away from my lawn 's  gate and took my sister's scooty to go to Chanakya for night show  with Jags and other friends.  We used to go to Pragati Maidan ( which was free ) and used to jump to Appu Ghar ( which was paid ) :) as both have same boundary .  Did all possible styles with tie , blazers , pull overs and tucking of shirts  thinking that we were looking Kool .. :) . Tried to become each other wing man also :) .  Giving innovative names to teachers , stealing people lunch or making monitor mess :) . Hanging out in  newly built Delhi hat bazaar on week end Or Reaching Lodhi Garden or Sanjay park every morning on summer vacations. Going for local cricket championship ..(Jags and other folks were really good cricker .. I was average player but was on good improving curve ) or searching Palika Bazar for new video game CD or new Rolex / Omega watch from street hawkers :)

I started going to Jags's home and it was my first experience to Bengali culture . He was very strict in attending evening pooja .. I also sometimes sit with him for this and went to couple of times in CR park.   Jags used to play harmonium for prayer .. It was so great .. I tried to learn but my mind was so fickle to learn any music instrument.. ..It stated my desire to learn any music insturment . Jags was different preson in home. He got great etiquette and has rich vocab (  Two diverse vocab set : ) . My first experience with multi personality person :)  )  With so much masti , we both improved our grades . I was topper in school  and Jags was  coming 3 rd .

I changed the school because of some reasons . Jags and I both changed our place .  I met with Jags after 12 years on this Jan ( Thanks Orkut !! )  .. I could not talk with him much as it was small get together . .

I came to Delhi on this March and decided to met with him  in person .. Before meeting in person with Jags .. I was worried what we will talk as there is whole disconnect of 12 years ..But when we met .. we just talked like as there was no disconnect .. I think this is the quality of old and real friends , whenever you met them ., you will  not find disconnect  It was so fun to meet with old friend .  This guy liked our conversation so much that he took office off on Monday ...
Currently , Jags also started playing guitar  . I was getting bore so he gave me his guitar and tried  to taught me couple of songs...  All in vain :) Attaching One prayer ( Bengali ) and one song .. Jags is singing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONgLj8PuEBY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SQDicmfK60

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8xwz0Lzvj8

Currently , Jags is trying to go to UK for MBA studies .He is a lead in Delhi based company.  Vicky is in working in IT company. .

Be Slow and Give time to Acclimatize

We want to pick up many things  ..We want to catch hold of most of our desires as early as possible ... Interesting , our demands starts becoming too diverse that it becomes to hard  to achieve them at a same time .. We try to do multi task but it hardly works most of time ...Our goals are so high that they need 100% ...

I will suggest that we can not do everything at once , on the first day in a job or the first few months of a relationship .. Being too fast in school , in job , or in relationships , one won't be ready for or capable of adjusting to , surprises and changes .. One may fail and may go through all heart burns and feeling low ..

Take hard decision to park other goals for a while and pick up one thing only .. Go slowly , gain experiences and strength ... and later take on extra responsibilities and increase the load by picking more stuff :) 

Be slow and give time to acclimatize . Have patience .. You don't have to be hero on the first day .. You just need to be you ......

Review Time - To Do List

Some 6 months ago , One of my good old friend told very seriously about  "To Do" list  and suggested me  to watch "dasvidaniya" and "bucketlist" came up.. I downloaded both but could see "dasvidaniya" only . I found it nice .. I liked the concept that at the end .. Hero looked for the incomplete desires which may not look big for others.... We keep on postponing these small ( or Big ) desires till end and never complete them... So , I decided to make my list and would review them back on Feb ( after 6 months )  .....  I thought that it is too personal and why should i share in blog but on second thoughts , it may help some one to make his own "To Do List"

S.No	WishList	Result
1.	*******	Put my best efforts ... But failed :(  ..........
2.	*******	Failed again :(  ..
	Sketching	Started  sketching after gap of 5 years  and overcome shyness to share with folks ….. I am not as good as I used to be.... But I realized that it was not as hard to restart  again :) .. .
4.	Ride on bullet and travel around on Highways with friends.	Completed with group of best friends . Went for 4 day bike journey in Leh / Ledhak / kashmir . Nice journey .. Lot of amazing  stories .  It was nice bro group ! ...
	Get rid of my fear of heights	Last year , I developed fear of heights because of an  accident  … I want to get rid of it . Went to couple of mountains in  J&;K, Pune and Karnataka ...
	Learn a music instrument	Learning guitar for last 4-5 months. Taking professional help  .. I am very bad at it …..Learning very slow ...But my teacher and my friend keep encouraging me :)
	Have a pet	Buzo ;) .. My Building dog !
8.	Be regular in Gym	Lost 10 Kg weight in last 4 months :) .  Thanks to my instructor who calls me every morning .
	Improve my communication specially vocal ..	Still pending … :(  . Went to Toastmaster , pick up couple of grammar books , Reading variety of books , started blogging but still long way to go for …..
	Help others in achieving their dreams and talking with people	This is long wish ..    I stated calling back home  and old frds. Proactively Started helping colleagues and non colleagues whenever possible

At the end of 6 months ,When I see back ... I might haven't have done exception job but certainly put efforts on all  wishes .... I know this wish list seems quite simple .. it doest not have very big goals but I want to make it very simple and short time bound .. 


I learnt three things with this activity : 

1. Write down your wish list and giving some time on AIs.

2.  For me , all above wishes were pending for a long time and I was not able to give time to them ...But when I wrote down them and started devoting  some time then I found that our desires are not as difficult as we initially thought of before starting them . ... 

So Rather than devoting time on dreaming about dreams .. start putting some time on dreams ...... Try to come to reach some logical conclusion as this will help to pick up new dreams ... Our brain is just like bucket .. Take out some stuff so that new stuff can come up :) 

3. Every package comes with a price tag and one needs to pay for it .. On working for my "To-do" list , I realized that i am paying a price for it ...... It was mix feeling , I was excited and happy as I was working on my To DO list  

but little bit tense as paying a price in one or some other form .. So be ready to sacrifice when you are working on "to do" list .. Nothing comes for free :) ..So better make a choice now  rather repenting later for price.....


Want to make next "To Do" list soon .. First item on  my next "To Do" list is :::: > Make a "To Do" List :) 

Tell your 3 weakness -- Same old question

I heard this question first time when I was preparing for campus recruitment .. I remember I was so surprised that why other people want to know my weakness  , he should be worried about his own weakness and my skill set  ....... Any how , Lot of people came up with lot of answers where weakness was actually a strength :) .. I also made one answer but no one asked me in any of my interviews .. :)

I got into other part of india for work. On the first day , I was asked to meet Big shot. At the end of meeting  , he asked me "dude tell me ur 3 weakness " and after a gap " Dont give me crap by telling your weakness which are indirect strengths"   .. I had no answer and asked for time  .. He smiled and asked me to come back when I figured out . Both of us never talked on this topic again. But .. I am sure , by now , he must be knowing my weakness more than me ....

Time passes by ... Recently , 2-3 friend  got  interview calls from management institute.  We discussed what should they write  about weakness which are actually strength in their essays . Similarly in interview training , It's being suggested to have some questions ready acting as ice breaker or time filler .. ".... Weakness " fits in those questions' suit.

Issue is ....Could there be something which sounds bad in society but actually could be good for you ... It is quite interesting  .....

Selfishness :  This words fills with the image of greedy and mean person .We all want to be called "Nice guy" and for this we start doing stuff for others at the cost of our own priorities .We say that "Can't say  NO" .. This could be good for sometime but  in a long run this will no work..   We can not keep whole world happy .. If we try then we will certainly landup in disappointment and burdening ourself too much ..We need to setup a boundary some where .

 Self development is a selfish act because you are working on making your life happy . But the thing is that by focusing on helping yourself first you can become stronger and help others in a better way too.

Laziness:  Human is lazy by nature .. This is the reason why there are so many machines / gadgets / new inventions / services in the market .  Being Lazy is good if you focusing your energy on your priorities and dropping low priority stuff . Dropping / Delegating low priority stuff will give your more bandwidth and give relaxation to work more on high priority stuff. Being Lazy may help in discovering  new innovative methods to work thing faster and efficient.

Ruthlessness: Being ruthless , in a bit , could be helpful . You need to take some hard decisions and cut off the stuff which are not in your priorities . Being ruthless will give you time and energy to focus on your topmost priorities . Some of the examples could be skipping some social engagements for your exams / goals or dropping your fav dish  for loosing weight etc . Being Ruthless is not always fun, but you have to be the boss of your life. You have to make the decisions and say NO both to yourself and to others , if necessary.

Any way , Don't answer above three if some one ask your weakness in interview .. You better know why :) . Moreover , Don't make an assumption  that I exhibit all three features :) . I may or may not !

PS : Selfishness becomes real issue when it brings up other emotions like jealousy and envy .  Ruthlessness is hard but one should avoid hurting other people dreams and heart for the sake of being a ruthless person :) . One should have valid reasons for being selfish and ruthless for an act..

Failure....

In interviewer training , presenter asked why many companies prefer experienced employees than freshers . There were many valid answers but one of the most convincing answer to me -- " More experience means person might have faced more failures and thus underlying expectation that those same mistakes might  not be repeated "

Failure is natural part of the learning process ... When we were kid , we fell many time while learning walking   .. We failed many times in learning any new skill  , starting  from learning basic algebra  to learning cycling ... But as we grow on as Adult ...Unfortunately , Society associates shame with any type of failure ...This forces many people to follow the prescribed path with less risk  , as opposed to taking risk of path less traveled as it may cause disappointment.

Failure means that you are taking new challenges and expanding your skills ... Failure means you are trying to learn new things ... Failure means you tried to do something which you believed on even if  it is not common path ..Remember ,,, graph of most of successful careers are not a straight line but a wave with ups and downs.....e.g Steve Jobs.  Even if I go by probability , for more number of success there should be similar number of failures..... So risk of  failure will always be there for any new thing or working for dreams. In fact , failures can serve as incredible opportunities in disguise... It force us to reevaluate our goals and priorities , and ofter propel us forward much faster than continued success .So failure should not be considered as bad .. In case , one meet with some one from silicon valley  , people took pride to tell they were part of start up which failed..

Bad thing which failure can cause to person is that he start to linger on it ... "Successful" failure requires sometime quitting ... Quitting is considered as sign of weakness , although sometimes , quitting is the bravest alternative , because it requires you to face your failures and announce them publicly . It tells that you control the situation and can leave whenever you like. It gives a chance to start from a clean slate and if you introspect then quitting can be an invaluable experience.

One of the biggest dilemma I face is when to quit . There is no fixed answer for this .. But one need to listen his gut feeling , be honest with self  and keep analyzing the situation at regular intervals of time  .... It is always easier to quit at the beginning than at the end because at end we think too much is invested and thus too hard to quit....  Remember there are sometimes situations which are never going to work out , no matter how much time , efforts and money you invest .. Regular checks may help to find these deadlocks @ early stage and one can quit early........ Quitting is always haaaard :-(

Coming back to failure .... Failing is nooooot a fun but there is no harm to try for the things which you believe in and failing  rather than not trying them and repenting later just because you fear failures ..

Death is the ultimate failure which every one will face .. So why we fear other little failures ?

Hope.....Dangerous or Good ?

Today, I Just happened to talk with an old good friend after a long gap...Randomly "Hope" came up and passed away in discussion :) 

I believe biggest damage one can cause to other person is by smashing his hope , self respect , freedom and aspirations ... So, no doubt, I consider hope is very important .. Hope is one of the core requirements of an individual.

Hope is a double edged sword. It can make and destroy a person.

People who go for hope as bad thing say different arguments like - “One should concentrate on services rather than on hoping for results  ... Leave results on Supreme Power "  Or  "Hope opens up the risk of getting down in case hope does not full fill  " Or give examples where people had baseless hopes or screwed up their life on failing or people falling on trap of person giving false hopes.

People who go for hope as good put arguments like "It's worth to take a risk of hoping and working on it rather than doing nothing " or " Hope is guiding light for a goal " or give examples where hope acted as life-saver like in concentration camp, apart from gas chamber deaths, all those people who left hope either succumbed to death or committed suicide.

Shawshank's Redemption has beautifully shown this dilemma in some beautiful dialogue like: 

 Morgan Freeman: "Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. It's got no use on the inside. You'd better get used to that idea. "

Tim Robbins: "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"

In my life , I achieved couple of significant goals when I did not care about results and hope nothing ...  Gone through pain when hope got shattered Buuut, there are couple of instances when hope inspired me to took an extra step, putting me back on the track and at end, making me a better person .. 

It is not an easy choice to make a blank statement that hope is always good or dangerous... It depends on person's attitude, situation and the moment.......

To end up this entry, I suggest, if you know your strengths and weaknesses, have the ability to read the signs, correctly and rapidly, from every direction in pursuing a hope , mature enough to accept the irony of fate, flexible enough for modification if needed, learnt not to be a gullible personality, believe the fact that failure is not the end of world and know the commitments that are needed for any hope , then you could save the trouble and the heartburn caused by shattered hopes and will set more feasible hopes . Hope will certainly act as inspiration not as blocker. 

Top 50 CEO

HBR just released Top 50 CEO

http://hbr.org/2010/01/the-best-performing-ceos-in-the-world/sb1

Interestingly , 70% has no MBA degree .. Could not figure out Why ??? 

May be couple of companies are IT , which are still run by their college drop out founders   OR couple of companies  run by family OR some companies are quite old when MBA may not be very important and CEO grew with in the company OR ????  .. .... Do drop your comments if you got some other reason.

BTW , I am happy Steve Jobs is number 1  ..  Mukesh Ambani is also at @5

Relearnt the old trick

Most of us may have listened Steve Jobs's famous Standford speech about "connect the dots "  . In this speech, Steve Jobs took a look back in his life  and beautifully  connected the dots ... No doubt , we all see back about our past events at regular intervals and this looking back brings lot of  emotions . These emotions may vary lot  .....They can be pride or shame , winning or loosing  , encouraging or frustrating , forgiveness or vengeance ,  happy or painful , innocence or guilt  etc etc ...

So , when you are confused about some situation .. Just make a small story  in 1-2 line and sit in the time machine for free ride to couple of years ahead . Repeat the story and observe what emotion this story creates ..Come back and try to choose a path ... It really helps in dealing with those situation when there is NO clear consequence or things are not absolute .......Moreover , one  get inspiration to stick with decision as there is commitment to a person who is no other but oneself  only ( little bit older though :(  )  .....

My ex- mentor told me this recently  .. For clear consequence type situation , we apply this trick implicitly  ( Like studying for exams , working for promo etc ) ..... For hazy situation , we may like to apply this trick explicitly... I did it for a recent situation and it helped me lot .. Thought to share with you guys .... I think most of you may already knowing this ....:) .. It seems that I forgot it :)

Tablet : My wishlist

Apple is launching iTablet on this 26 Jan ... There are big rumors about this tablet but Apple is keeping secret for big show :) .. Steve Jobs has claimed that iSlate will bring similar revolution in ebook  and information industry as  iPod did for music industry ....
Not sure whether this iTablet is another e-reader ??

My wish list for tablet laptop

Better Stylus support :
Tablet should recognize my stylus inputs much better. It should be like the way a person write on paper with pen .....current stylus recognizability software are not very great...
It should come with multi touch support feature ..
It should have better note keeping software ( described below ) which can help in accessing my old and new sketched notes.

At the end , I should be able to replace my sketch book with tablet.

User Experience (UX) : 
Microsoft had done big mistake of not changing the user experience for its tablet version .. Microsoft did not change the UX for tablet users...... Microsoft just added stylus and handwriting support ( which sucks big time :( ) and keep the same UX ... I think Microsoft had done the same mistake of not changing the UX with windows mobile 5.0 but this blog is talking about tablet ... So I should better stick to Tablet only :)
Tablet Laptop should have great user experience and should cater to tablet users ... . Apple is far ahead in terms of user exp. It has shown the world in Mach , iPhone and iPod ... I am expecting some great UX in tablet.... I would not surprise if there are some 3D effects :)

Convertible ( With Physical Keyboard )  Vs Sleek Tablets :
I will prefer Sleek tablets as they are much lighter and smaller in width with better virtual keyboard.

Virtual Keyboards :
No doubt a person can type much faster than write .. So i would like to have great virtual keyboard with gravity effect . For sleek tablets , Virtual keyboard is on screen . Apart from limiting Virtual keyboard on screen ,  I would like that tablet should make image of virtual keyboard on any surface near to tablet and there is a camera to pick up the user inputs.

Better E-book Reader software:
I wish it there are some better free ebook reader software which can help in reading ebook , making notes , bookmarks , browsing the book and comments... Safari Online books has done great for ebook reading ..
I would also like that tablet should be bundled with  some free note making type software . OneNote is great  but it is Microsoft paid software.

Movie Support : 
Tablet should support all type of codecs . It should come with remote control or voice control so that one can rewind or fastforward the movie sitting far away from tablet . I wish tablet can stick it to any kind of wall or incline to any angle with any surface..

USB and 802.11 : 
Tablet should have USB and wireless support.

Application compability : 
I will prefer to have a tablet which supports application comp ability ...

Misc:
It should be cheap :) . Better battery and supports domain connection

Anyway , Apple did not consult me for their tablet but it will be fun to see how will be Apple's new table will be ....Whole world is waiting for iTable / iSlate to see whether Steve Jobs stick to his promise or not...

Take slow steps ....

Everyone sometimes in their life lands up in a phase when one doesn't have any goals .. May be one has just achieved a goal or going through the pain of some loss or has not figured out passion yet ... There could be many other reasons , which is all together a different story...... But , Essence is  ... life without goal seems pointless and sometimes painful .....

If one don't know what to do  next ... If next steps are sooo unclear .. If road ahead seems so darkkk... It is better to go to the things one knows .. Look for things one might have missed . Take slow steps and finish things one by one ..Neither just sit by doing nothing  Nor jump across and pick up many things  ..... Fastest way to get out of this stage is take slow steps :)

Just finished Ayan Rand's "The Fountainhead " ... One of  the two advice by Ellsworth Toohey was " Don't be too serious about youself " .. Same as Dark Knight's Joker "Why so serious "  ... Leaving the tough part of interpretation on reader ... of course :)

I always love Baz Luhrmann's Sunscreen .. One of the line is " Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t."

So take slow steps and don't be too serious about yourself !!!