Happy New Year

Mind of a Rapist

Some years back, a Hindi movie by the name 'Lajja' was released. This controversial movie had depicted the plight of rape victims. However the movie could not make a big impact at the box office. But I was very impressed by the creative which was published in newspapers to promote this movie at that time. It depicted a woman's expressive eyes in close up with a drop of tear falling from her left eye with a caption "Rape : An ordeal only a woman can understand". Although I have never watched that movie the caption has managed to stay in my memory for more than 4 years now.

I was reminded of this caption after reading these two news items recently.
1. BPO rape, murder clouds Bangalore - The victim's mother-in-law herself had seen her off for work with the rapist, not knowing what was going to happen to her. It did really hurt me, no words to explain my agony.
2. Woman raped in train - The victim was raped in front of her husband and co-passengers at knife point. How inhuman!!!

These incidents have pained me to a great extent and I have been thinking about this since the last few weeks. I felt as helpless as the rape victims themselves, as it is upto the people who indulge in such crimes to realise their fault, until such time no amount of law can completely eradicate this crime. I feel these criminals should be awarded capital punishment to avoid setting a bad precedence to others. However I wanted to understand what goes on in the mind of the rapists and what makes them to commit such sins.

I searched the web and found this information.Rapists who assault women lead double lives. On the outside they may appear no different from other men. They are members of every race, religion, profession, and socioeconomic group; they are of varying ages and are often members of churches. Many of them impress others as dedicated family men who are good providers.

They are not insane nor are they "sowing some wild oats." They are men who have serious psychological or personality disorders, which they discharge trough sexual violence. The consequences of this behavior (what may happen to him or to others) has no meaning to the rapist at the time of the assault. Therefore, he is not deterred by such logical considerations as punishment, disgrace to his family, injury to his victim, etc.

Rape is always an aggressive and/or violent act. In every act of rape, aggression is involved, but it is clear that the sexual acts are the means of expressing the aggressive needs and feelings that operate in the offender. Either anger or power is the dominant component so that rape, rather than being primarily an expression of sexual desire, is in fact the use of sexuality to express his issues of power and anger. Basically, it involves sexual behavior in the primary service of non-sexual needs.

Sexuality is NOT the primary motive underlying rape. It is, however the means through which conflicts surrounding issues of anger and power become discharged.

Read the complete article at :

http://danenet.wicip.org/dcccrsa/saissues/rapist.html

Kaipullai Calling...

I have launched my new blog 'Kaipullai Calling...' today. While I would be keeping this blog updated for news that I have read, heard or general titbits/email forwards, you can expect Kaipullai Calling...to be of a more personal nature, about me, my interests and my experiences in English, Tamil or Tanglish. I would like to thank all my readers for your continued patronage.

Marketing Fundas

A professor at the Indian Institute of Management was explaining marketing concepts

1. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: "I am very rich. Marry me!" - That's Direct Marketing.

2. You're at a party with a bunch of friends and see a gorgeous girl. One of your friends goes up to her and pointing at you says: "He's very rich. Marry him." - That's Advertising.

3. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and get her telephone number. The next day, you call and say: "Hi, I'm very rich. Marry me." - That's
Telemarketing.

4. You're at a party and see a gorgeous girl. You get up and straighten your tie, you walk up to her and pour her a drink, you open the door of the car for her, pick up her bag after she drops it, offer her ride and then say: "By the way, I'm rich. Will you marry me?" - That's Public Relations.

5. You're at a party and see a gorgeous girl. She walks up to ! you and says: "You are very rich! Can you marry me?" - That's Brand Recognition.

6. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: "I am very rich. Marry me!" She gives you a nice hard slap on your face. - That's Customer Feedback.

7. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: "I am very rich. Marry me!" And she introduces you to her husband. - That's demand and supply gap.

8. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and before you say anything, another person come and tells her: "I'm rich. Will you marry me?" and she goes with him - That's competition eating into your market share.

9. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and before you say: "I'm rich Marry me!" your wife arrives. - That's restriction for entering new markets.

Your Birthdate

The birth date describes who we are, what we are good at and what our inborn abilities are. It also points to what we have to learn and the challenges we are facing. To figure out your Birth Number, add all the numbers in the birth date together like in the example until there is
only one digit. The Birth Number does not prevent you from being anything you want, it will just color your choice differently.

Example: March 20, 1950

3 + 20 + 1950 = 1973 = 1 + 9 + 7 + 3 = 20 = 2 + 0 = 2
2 is the Birth Number to read for the birth date in the example.

# 1 THE ORIGINATOR

1's are originals. Coming up with new ideas and executing them is natural. Having things their own way is another trait that gets them labeled as being stubborn and arrogant. 1's are extremely honest and do well to learn some diplomacy skills. They like to take the initiative and are often leaders or bosses, as they like to be the best. Being self-employed is definitely helpful for them. Lesson to learn: Others' ideas might be just as good or better and to stay open minded.

Famous 1's: Tom Hanks, Robert Redford, Hulk Hogan, Carol Burnett, Wynona Judd, Nancy Reagan, Raquel Welch.

# 2 THE PEACEMAKER

2's are the born diplomats. They aware of others' needs and moods and often think of others before themselves. Naturally analytical and very intuitive they don't like to be alone. Friendship and companionship is very important and can lead them to be successful in life, but on the other hand they'd rather be alone than in an uncomfortable relationship. Being naturally shy they should learn to boost their
self-esteem and express themselves freely and seize the moment and not put things off.

Famous 2's: Bill Clinton, Madonna, Whoppie Goldberg,Thomas Edison,Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

# 3 THE LIFE OF THE PARTY

3's are idealists. They are very creative, social, charming,romantic,and easygoing. They start many things, but don't always see them through.They like others to be happy and go to great lengths to achieve it. They are very popular and idealistic. They should learn to see the world from a more realistic point of view.

Famous 3's: Griffith,Salvador Dali, Jody Foster.

# 4 THE CONSERVATIVE

4's are sensible and traditional. They like order and routine. They only act when they fully understand what they are expected to do.They like getting their hands dirty and working hard. They are attracted to the outdoors and feel an affinity with nature. They are prepared to wait and can be stubborn and persistent. They should learn to be more flexible and to be nice to themselves.

Famous 4's: Neil Diamond, Margaret Thatcher, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tina Turner, Paul Hogan, Oprah Winfrey.

# 5 THE NONCONFORMIST

5's are the explorers. Their natural curiosity, risk taking,and enthusiasm often lands them in hot water. They need diversity, and don't like to be stuck in a rut. The whole world is their school and they see a learning possibility in every situation. The questions never stop. They are well advised to look before they take action and make sure they have all the facts before jumping to conclusions.

Famous 5's: Abraham Lincoln, Charlotte Bronte, Jessica Walter,VincentVan Gogh, Bette Midler, Helen Keller and Mark Hamil.

# 6 THE ROMANTIC

6's are idealistic and need to feel useful to be happy. A strong family connection is important to them. Their emotions influence their decisions.They have a strong urge to take care of others and to help. They are very loyal and make great teachers. They like art or music. They make loyal friends who take the friendship seriously. 6's should learn to differentiate between what they can change and what
they cannot.

Famous 6's: Albert Einstein, Jane Seymour, John Denver, Meryl
Streep,Christopher Columbus, Goldie Hawn.

# 7 THE INTELLECTUAL

7's are the searchers. Always probing for hidden information, they find it difficult to accept things at face value. Emotions don't sway their decisions. Questioning everything in life, they don't like to be questioned themselves. They're never off to a fast start, and their motto is slow and steady wins the race. They come across as philosophers and being very knowledgeable, and sometimes as loners. They are technically inclined and make great researchers uncovering information. They like
secrets. They live in their own world and should learn what is acceptable and what
not in the world at large.

Famous 7's: William Shakespeare, Lucille Ball, Michael Jackson, JoanBaez,Princess Diana.

# 8 THE BIG SHOT

8's are the problem solvers. They are professional, blunt and to the point, have good judgement and are decisive. They've grandiose plans and like to live the good life. They are take charge people. They view people objectively. They let you know in no uncertain terms that they are the boss.They should learn to base their decisions on their own needs rather than on what others want.

Famous 8's: Edgar Cayce, Barbra Streisand, George Harrison, Jane Fonda,Pablo Picasso, Urethra Franklin, Nostrodamus

# 9 THE PERFORMER

9's are natural entertainers. They are very caring and generous, giving away their last dollar to help. With their charm, they have no problem making friends and nobody is a stranger to them. They have so many different personalities that people around them have a hard time mood. To be successful, they need to build a
loving foundation.

Famous 9's: Albert Schweitzer, Shirley MacLaine, Harrison Ford, Gloria Steinem, Jimmy Carter, Elvis Presley

How the Internet started?

And, lo, it came to pass that the trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot. And Dot Com was an attractive woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she had been called Amazon Dot Com. And she said unto Abraham, her husband, "Why doth thou travel far from town to town with thy goods, when thou can trade without ever leaving thy tent?"

And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said, "How, dear?" And Dot replied, "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale and they will reply telling you which hath the best price. And the sale can be made on the drums and delivery by Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)."

Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. And Dot said, "There will be a lot of banging in the land." And Abraham replied, "It is my most fervent wish that this be so." And the drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had, at the top price, without ever moving from his tent. But his success did arouse envy. A man named Maccabia did hide himself inside Abraham's drum and was accused of insider trading.

And the young did take to Dot Com's trading as doth the greedy horsefly to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Siderites,or NERDS for short. And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums, that no one noticed that the real riches were going to the drum maker, one Brother William of Gates, who bought up every drum maker in the land. And indeed did insist on making drums that would only work if
you bought Brother William's drumsticks.

And Dot did say, "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others." And as Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or as it came to be known, "eBay," he said, "We need a name of a service that reflects what we are." And Dot replied, "Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators."

"Whoopee!" said Abraham.

"No, YAHOO!" said Dot Com.

Unstoppable Wave

26th of December 2004, as I lay slouching on my bed lazily sipping tea and watching TV, I was interrupted by ticker messages running across the screen that a giant wave has hit the Eastern Coast of India. Minutes later I found myself calling my family at Chennai and was relieved to know that they were safe, as our home was within 2km from the Bay of Bengal. But the same was not true for some, who lived not so far from my home. As I later learnt it was much more than a giant wave and had affected many countries in SE Asia. The worst affected being Indonesia. People who prided having a home near the Sea, for the first time feared it, as was evident from the drop in property rates on the eastern side(sea side)witnessed in Chennai.

Damage in Marina Beach, Chennai

Tsunami had suddenly become a household name, with makeshift settlements and babies born during this calamity named after Tsunami. I myself have heard so many stories about how people fell prey to the killer waves. Early morning joggers to the Marina beach, people who had ventured into the sea, people who had gone to the seafront to offer last rites to the departed - all were washed away by this Tsunami. A particularly sorry tale was that of an old washerwoman, who after having run a considerable distance from the sea when the Tsunami struck, went back to pick up the
clothes she was ironing, only to be swept away. It has been exactly an year today, people are slowly getting over the trauma, but the damages have been permanent. Its always difficult to digest the fact that your loved ones are not there anymore...isn't it?

Yesterday evening I watched a programme called "Unstoppable Wave" in Discovery Channel. Scientists and Tsunamic experts, have made a remarkable scientific discovery, 260 kilometres off the coast of Banda Aceh,Indonesia, with the aid of seismic survey equipment and remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) – the team collects the data required to not only understand last year's tsunami, but to develop a computer model that could be used to predict the size of future tsunamis elsewhere in the world, and ultimately, help save thousands of lives.

Almost five kilometres below the ocean surface, one ROV reveals evidence that the sea floor was pushed upwards during the Sumatra earthquake. Scientists now confirm that this uplift caused the deadly tsunami – 1,200 kilometres of the fault line ruptured in just 500 seconds, causing a drastic uplift, raising the ocean waters above, and triggering the deadly wave. Scientists were also predicting a Tsunami to hit Washington and Oregon in the US and have already started taking precautionary measures and Tsunami early warning systems to ward off Nature's fury. All said and done, one can only hope that such natural calamities do not occur anywhere else.

The Gift of the Magi

Iam reminded of this beautiful story...a classic by O'Henry, that so effectively captures the love and affection between two individuals and the spirit of giving and receiving. What better time than this festive season, to share it!


Read it here...
http://www.auburn.edu/~vestmon/Gift_of_the_Magi.html

The following lines from this story sums it all...
"The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi. "

How to make an Aeroplane?

Over an impulse, I googled today morning for "How to make an Aeroplane?", hoping to find something of the sort of cutting Balsa wood(may be they don't use this to make the modern planes), how they make the cockpit, how the paraphernalia are fitted etc.,

Instead I found this..."The best airplane in the World" with step-by-step instructions to build it. Try this...

Season's Greetings

Handwritten and posterized with MS-Photo Editor

Joke : No matter what

Forgive me for the language in this joke...but I could not resist having an instant laughter after reading this.

A man who was called to testify at the income-tax, asked his accountant for advice on what to wear. "Wear your shabbiest clothing. Let them think you are a pauper," the accountant replied.

Then he asked his lawyer the same question, but got the opposite advice. "Do not let them intimidate you. Wear your most elegant suit and tie." Confused, the man went to his wife, told him of the conflicting advice, and requested some resolution of the dilemma. "Let me tell you a story," replied the wife.

"A woman, about to be married, asked her mother what to wear on her wedding night. 'Wear a heavy, long, flannel nightgown that goes right up to your neck.'
But when she asked her best friend, she got conflicting advice. Wear your most sexy negligee, with a v-neck right down to your navel."

The man protested: "What does all this have to do with my problem with the Income-tax?"

The Wife replied, "No matter what you wear, you are going to get f%*#ked."

Ten Commandments

The most damaging one letter word : I
Avoid it.

The most satisfying two-letter word : WE
Use it.

The most poisonous three-letter word : EGO
Kill it.

The most used four-letter word : LOVE
Value it.

The most pleasing five-letter word : SMILE
Keep it.

The fastest spreading six-letter word : RUMOUR
Ignore it.

The most enviable seven-letter word : SUCCESS
Achieve it.

The most nefarious eight-letter word : JEALOUSY
Distance it.

The most powerful nine-letter word : KNOWLEDGE
Acquire it.

The most essential ten-letter word : CONFIDENCE
Trust it.

Invite Love home!

A woman came out of her house and saw 3 old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them. She said "I don't think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat."

"Is the man of the house home?", they asked.

"No", she said. "He's out."

"Then we cannot come in", they replied.

In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened."Go tell them I am home and invite them in!"

The woman went out and invited the men in. "We do not go into a house together," they replied.

"Why is that?" she wanted to know.

One of the old men explained: "His name is Wealth," he said pointing to one of his friends, and said pointing to another one,"He is Success,and I am Love." Then he added, "Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home."

The woman went in and told her husband what was said. Her husband was overjoyed. "How nice!!", he said. "Since that is the case, let us invite Wealth. Let him come and fill our home with wealth!"

His wife disagreed. "My dear, why don't we invite Success?"

Their daughter-in-law was listening from the other corner of the house. She
jumped in with her own suggestion: "Would it not be better to invite Love?
Our home will then be filled with love!"

"Let us heed our daughter-in-law's advice," said the husband to his wife. "Go out and invite Love to be our guest."

The woman went out and asked the 3 old men, "Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest."

Love got up and started walking toward the house. The other two also got
up and followed him. Surprised, the lady asked Wealth and Success: "I only invited Love, Why are you coming in?"

The old men replied together: "If you had invited Wealth or Success, the other two of us would've stayed out, but since you invited Love, wherever He goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!!!!!!"

Want to Moonwalk?

Try this...its too good to be missed.

Just follow the steps below.
1. Open a fresh Excel sheet
2. Press F5
3. Type X97:L97
4. Press ENTER
5. Press TAB once
6. Press Shift & Ctrl together and click on CHART icon

Happy Moonwalking!

How good is your John Hancock?

While going through my daily subscription of word a day from http://wordsmith.org, I got to know the word 'curlicue' or 'curlycue' (KUR-li-kyoo) which means a decorative curl or twist, in a signature, calligraphy, etc.

To find some great curlicues, try the US Declaration of Independence http://archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/declaration_zoom_2.html
The most prominent signature is of John Hancock, the first signer of the document.

According to a legend as per Wikipedia, he signed his name largely and clearly to be sure King George III could read it, causing his name to become an eponym for "signature". However, other examples show that Hancock always wrote his signature this way.

Unconventional Thinking

The following concerns a question in a physics degree exam at the University of Copenhagen:

"Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer."

One student replied: "You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building."

This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed. The student appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case. The arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did not display any noticeable knowledge of physics. To resolve the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer which showed at least a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of physics.

For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought.

The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn't make up his mind which to use.

On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows:

"Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H = 0.5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer."

"Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper's shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper."

"But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T = 2 pi sqroot (l / g)."

"Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up."

"If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building."

"But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor's door and say to him 'If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this
skyscraper'."

The student was Niels Bohr, the only person from Denmark to win the Nobel prize for Physics.

Customer Service

For all of you out there that have dealt with an irate customer, and who hasn't?, this one is for you!

An award should go to this United Airline gate agent, in Denver,for being smart, funny, making her point, and being cool under fire, when confronted by a passenger, who probably deserved to fly as baggage .....or worse....

A crowded United flight was cancelled. A single agent was re booking a long line of inconvenienced travellers.

Suddenly an angry passenger pushed his way to the gate desk. He slapped his ticket on the desk's counter top and said; "I HAVE TO be on this flight, and it HAS TO BE FIRST CLASS."

The agent replied; "I'm sorry sir, I'll be happy to help you, but I've got to help these folks in line first, and I'm sure that we'll be able to work something out."

The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear; "Do you have any idea who I am?"

Without hesitating the gate agent smiled and grabbed her public address microphone... "May I have your attention PLEASE?"; she began, her voice bellowing through out the terminal. "We have a passenger at the gate WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS, so if anyone can help find his identity, PLEASE COME TO GATE 49 !!!!"

With the folk behind him laughing hysterically, the man glared at the United
agent, gritted his teeth and swore; "F**** You!!"

Without flinching she smiled and said; "I'm sorry sir, but you'll have to
get in line for that too..."

Two Ethical Questions

Q1: If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis; would you recommend that she have an abortion?


Read the next question before scrolling down to the answer of
this one.

Q2: It is time to elect the world leader, and your vote counts.
Here are the facts about the three leading candidates:

Candidate A
Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.

Candidate B
He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, smokes, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whisky every evening.

Candidate C
He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and hasn't had any extramarital affairs.

Which of these candidates would be your choice?

Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt
Candidate B is Winston Churchill
Candidate C is Adolf Hitler

and by the way:
Answer to the abortion question - if you said yes, you just killed Beethoven.

Joke : Lottery Ticket

John, who was in financial difficulty, walked into a church and started to pray.

"Listen God," John said. "I know I haven't been perfect but I really need to win the lottery. I don't have a lot of money. Please help me out."

He left the church, a week went by, and he hadn't won the lottery, so he walked into a synagogue.

"Come on, God," he said. "I really need this money. My mom needs surgery and I have bills to pay. Please let me win the lottery."

He left the synagogue, a week went by, and he didn't win the lottery. So, he went to a mosque and started to pray again.

"You're starting to disappoint me, God," he said. "I've prayed and prayed. If you just let me win the lottery, I'll be a better person. I don't have to win the jackpot, just enough to get me out of debt. I'll give some to charity, even. Just let me win the lottery."

John thought this did it, so he got up and walked outside.

The clouds opened up and a booming voice said, "John, buy a lottery ticket."

The Lost Child

I enjoyed reading this story by Mulk Raj Anand many years ago, when I was in School. I found this story here at the URL given below, which I have also reproduced it here. The story is truly Indian in outlook, portrays a small Indian middle class family and aptly depicts a child's enthusiasm in all its glory together with its fine nuances.
http://www.ncert.nic.in/textbooks/IX/A_Mosaic_of_Life_IX/SR1.pdf
It was the festival of spring. From the wintry shades of narrow lanes and alleys emerged a gaily clad humanity. Some walked, some rode on horses, others sat, being carried in bamboo and bullock carts. One little boy ran between his father’s legs, brimming over with life and laughter. “Come, child, come,” called his parents, as he lagged behind, fascinated by the toys in the shops that lined the way.

He hurried towards his parents, his feet obedient to their call, his eyes still lingering on the receding toys. As he came to where they had stopped to wait for him, he could not suppress the desire of his heart, even though he well knew the old, cold stare of refusal in their eyes. “I want that toy,” he pleaded. His father looked at him red-eyed, in his familiar tyrant’s way. His mother, melted by the free spirit of the day was tender and, giving him her finger to hold, said, “Look, child, what is before you!”

It was a flowering mustard-field, pale like melting gold as it swept across miles and miles of even land. A group of dragon-flies were bustling about on their gaudy purple wings, intercepting the flight of a lone black bee or butterfly in search of sweetness from the flowers. The child followed them in the air with his gaze, till one of them would still its wings and rest, and he would try to catch it. But it would go fluttering, flapping, up into the air, when he had almost caught it in his hands. Then his mother gave a cautionary call: “Come, child, come, come on to the footpath.”

He ran towards his parents gaily and walked abreast of them for a while, being, however, soon left behind, attracted by the little insects and worms along the footpath that were teeming out from their hiding places to enjoy the sunshine.

“Come, child, come!” his parents called from the shade of a grove where they had seated themselves on the edge of a well. He ran towards them. A shower of young flowers fell upon the child as he entered the grove, and, forgetting his parents, he began to gather the raining petals in his hands. But lo! he heard the cooing of doves and ran towards his parents, shouting, “The dove! The dove!” The raining petals dropped from his forgotten hands.

“Come, child, come!” they called to the child, who had now gone running in wild capers round the banyan tree, and gathering him up they took the narrow, winding footpath which led to the fair through the mustard fields. As they neared the village the child could see many other footpaths full of throngs, converging to the whirlpool of the fair, and felt at once repelled and fascinated by the confusion of the world he was entering.

A sweetmeat seller hawked, “gulab-jaman, rasagulla, burfi, jalebi,” at the corner of the entrance and a crowd pressed round his counter at the foot of an architecture of many coloured sweets, decorated with leaves of silver and gold. The child stared open-eyed and his mouth watered for the burfi that was his favourite sweet. “I want that burfi,” he slowly murmured. But he half knew as he begged that his plea would not be heeded because his parents would say he was greedy. So without waiting for an answer he moved on.

A flower-seller hawked, “A garland of gulmohur, a garland of gulmohur !” The child seemed irresistibly drawn. He went towards the basket where the flowers lay heaped and half murmured, “I want that garland.” But he well knew his parents would refuse to buy him those flowers because they would say that they were cheap. So, without waiting for an answer, he moved on.

A man stood holding a pole with yellow, red, green and purple balloons flying from it. The child was simply carried away by the rainbow glory of their silken colours and he was filled with an overwhelming desire to possess them all. But he well knew his parents would never buy him the balloons because they would say he was too old to play with such toys. So he walked on farther.

A snake-charmer stood playing a flute to a snake which coiled itself in a basket, its head raised in a graceful bend like the neck of a swan, while the music stole into its invisible ears like the gentle rippling of an invisible waterfall. The child went towards the snake-charmer. But, knowing his parents had forbidden him to hear such coarse music as the snake- charmer played, he proceeded farther.

There was a roundabout in full swing. Men, women and children, carried away in a whirling motion, shrieked and cried with dizzy laughter. The child watched them intently and then he made a bold request: “I want to go on the roundabout, please, Father, Mother.” There was no reply. He turned to look at his parents. They were not there, ahead of him. He turned to look on either side. They were not there. He looked behind. There was no sign of them.

A full, deep cry rose within his dry throat and with a sudden jerk of his body he ran from where he stood, crying in real fear, “Mother, Father.” Tears rolled down from his eyes, hot and fierce; his flushed face was convulsed with fear. Panic- stricken, he ran to one side first, then to the other, hither and thither in all directions, knowing not where to go. “Mother, Father,” he wailed. His yellow turban came untied and his clothes became muddy.

Having run to and fro in a rage of running for a while, he stood defeated, his cries suppressed into sobs. At little distances on the green grass he could see, through his filmy eyes, men and women talking. He tried to look intently among the patches of bright yellow clothes, but there was no sign of his father and mother among these people, who seemed to laugh and talk just for the sake of laughing and talking.

He ran quickly again, this time to a shrine to which people seemed to be crowding. Every little inch of space here was congested with men, but he ran through people’s legs, his little sob lingering: “Mother, Father!” Near the entrance to the temple, however, the crowd became very thick: men jostled each other, heavy men, with flashing, murderous eyes and hefty shoulders. The poor child struggled to thrust a way between their feet but, knocked to and fro by their brutal movements, he might have been trampled underfoot, had he not shrieked at the highest pitch of his voice, “Father, Mother!”

A man in the surging crowd heard his cry and, stooping with great difficulty, lifted him up in his arms. “How did you get here, child? Whose baby are you?” the man asked as he steered clear of the mass. The child wept more bitterly than ever now and only cried, “I want my mother, I want my father!”

The man tried to soothe him by taking him to the roundabout. “Will you have a ride on the horse?” he gently asked as he approached the ring. The child’s throat tore into a thousand shrill sobs and he only shouted: “I want my mother, I want my father!”

The man headed towards the place where the snake- charmer still played on the flute to the swaying cobra. “Listen to that nice music, child!” he pleaded. But the child shut his ears with his fingers and shouted his double-pitched strain: “I want my mother, I want my father!” The man took him near the balloons, thinking the bright colours of the balloons would distract the child’s attention and quieten him. “Would you like a rainbow-coloured balloon?” he persuasively asked. The child turned his eyes from the flying balloons and just sobbed, “I want my mother, I want my father!”

The man, still trying to make the child happy, bore him to the gate where the flower-seller sat. “Look! Can you smell those nice flowers, child! Would you like a garland to put round your neck?” The child turned his nose away from the basket and reiterated his sob: “I want my mother, I want my father!”

Thinking to humour his disconsolate charge by a gift of sweets, the man took him to the counter of the sweet shop. “What sweets would you like, child?” he asked. The child turned his face from the sweet shop and only sobbed, “I want my mother, I want my father!”

Joke : Alzheimer's Vs AIDS

The phone rings. The lady of the house answers, "Yes? "

Mrs. Ward, please.

"Speaking"

"Mrs. Ward, this is Doctor Jones at the Medical Testing Laboratory. When your Doctor sent your husband's samples to the lab, the samples from another Mr. Ward were sent as well and we are now uncertain which one is your husband's. Frankly, it is either bad or terrible."

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Ward asks.

"Well, one Mr. Ward has tested positive for Alzheimer's disease (related to memory) and the other for AIDS. We can't tell which your husband's is"

"That's terrible! Can we do the test over?" questions Mrs. Ward.

"Normally, yes. But Medicare won't pay for these expensive tests more than once."

"Well, what am I supposed to do now?"

"The people at Medicare recommend that you drop your husband off in the middle of town. If he finds his way home, don't sleep with him."

Love

A nice article about Love by Swami Vivekananda

I once had a friend who grew to be very close to me. Once when we were sitting at the edge of a swimming pool, she filled the palm of her hand with some water and held it before me, and said this: "You see this water carefully contained on my hand? It symbolizes Love."

This was how I saw it: As long as you keep your hand caringly open and allow it to remain there, it will always be there. However, if you attempt to close your fingers round it and try to possess it, it will spill through the first cracks it finds.

This is the greatest mistake that people do when they meet love...they try to possess it, they demand, they expect... and just like the water spilling out of your hand, love will retrieve from you .

For love is meant to be free, you cannot change its nature. If there are people you love, allow them to be free beings.

Give and don't expect.
Advise, but don't order.
Ask, but never demand.

It might sound simple, but it is a lesson that may take a lifetime to truly practice. It is the secret to true love. To truly practice it, you must sincerely feel no expectations from those who you love, and yet an unconditional caring.

Passing thought... Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take; but by the moments that take our breath away.....

Life is beautiful!!! Live it !!!

Joke : The Drowning Woman

Standing at the edge of the lake, a man saw a woman flailing about in the deep water. Unable to swim, the man started to scream for help. A trout fisherman ran up. The man said, "My wife is drowning and I can't swim. Please save her. I'll give you a hundred dollars."

The fisherman dove into the water. In ten powerful strokes, he reached the woman, put his arm around her, and swam back to shore. Depositing her at the feet of the man, the fisherman said, "Okay, where's my hundred?"

The man said, "Look, when I saw her going down for the third time, I thought it was my wife. But this is my mother-in-law."

The fisherman reached into his pocket and said, "Just my luck. How much do I owe you?"

Joke : The Aussie and the Texan

A Texan farmer goes to Australia for a vacation. There he meets an Aussie farmer and gets to talking. The Aussie shows off his big wheat field and the Texan says, "Oh! We have wheat fields that are at least twice as large."

Then they walk around the ranch a little, and the Aussie shows off his herd of cattle. The Texan immediately says, " We have longhorns that are at least twice as large as your cows."

The conversation has, meanwhile, almost died when the Texan sees a herd of kangaroos hopping through the field. He asks,"And what are those"?

The Aussie replies with an incredulous look, "Don't you have any grasshoppers in
Texas?"

Joke : Husband Shopping

There was this "Husband Shopping Center" where a woman could go to choose from among many men, her husband. It was laid out in five floors, with the men increasing in +ve attributes as you ascended up the floors. The only rule was, once you opened the
door to any floor you must choose a man from that floor, and if you went up a floor, you couldn't go back down except to leave the place.

So, a couple of girls go to the place to find men ...

First floor, the door had a sign saying "These men have jobs and love kids."

The women read the sign and say "Well that's better than not having jobs, or not loving kids, but I wonder what's further up?". So up they go.

Second floor says "These men have high paying jobs, love kids, and are extremely good looking" Hmmm, say the girls. But, I wonder what's further up?

Third floor: "These men have high paying jobs, are extremely good looking, love kids and help with the housework."

Wow! say the women. Very tempting !!! But, there's more further up! And up they
go.

Fourth floor: "These men have high paying jobs, love kids, are extremely good
looking, help with the housework, and have a strong romantic streak."

Oh, mercy me. But just think! What must be awaiting us further on!

So up to the fifth floor they go. The sign on that door said "This floor is just
to prove that women are impossible to please."

Quarter Life Crisis

For those in their twenty-something's , may be even early thirties...This puts it all into words perfectly. They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis."

It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are a lot of things about yourself that you didn't know and may or may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you do not realize is that they are realizing that too and are not really cold or catty or mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job. It is not even close to what you thought you would be doing or maybe you are looking for one and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and are scared. You miss the comforts of college, of groups, of socializing with the same people on a constant basis. But then you realize that maybe they weren't so great after all.

You are beginning to understand yourself and what you want and do not want. Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging a bit more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and add things to your list of what is acceptable and what is not. You are insecure and then secure.

You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you or you lay in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough to get to know better.

You love someone but maybe love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you are not a bad person. One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap and getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans and money and the future and making a life for yourself and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.

Surviving a Heart Attack

Let's say it's 6.15 pm and you're driving home (alone of course) after an unusually hard day on the job.You're really tired, and frustrated.

Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up into your jaw. You are only five miles from the hospital nearest your home. Unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far. You have been trained in CPR, but the guy that taught the course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself.

Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, without help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing conscious.

However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest.

A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without let-up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again. Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital.

Don't ever think that you are not prone to heart attack if your age is less than 25 or 30. Nowadays due to the change in the life style, heart attack is found among people of all age groups.

If you try...you can

For those of you who can read Hindi, enjoy this poem by Late.Harivanshrai Bachan, noted Poet and father of legendary Bollywood Actor Amitabh Bachan. A retired English Professor, he is known for his literary works in Hindi. This poem glorifies hard work and perseverance.

Joke : Hard Luck!

A suburban guy left for work on Sept. 11 at about 6:00AM to go to his office in the WTC...

When he got to Manhattan he went to his lover's apartment in the Village, turned his cell phone off, and thought of spending some good time with her.

At about 10:00AM, while still at her place, he turned his cell phone on, and a second later it rang. He answered, and it was his wife who screamed at him, "Where are you? I've been trying to call you for an hour. I've been worried sick about you!!!"

So he answered, "Where do you think I am? I'm in my office!!!"

Stephen Covey's 4Ls

Author Stephen Covey says that people all share four basic needs:the need to live, to love, to learn and to leave a legacy.

We need to live. Not just to breathe but to live life fully. Dr. Philip Humbert asks, "What remarkable, extraordinary and amazing things will you do with this wild and wonderful miracle, your one and only life?"

We need to love. We also need to be loved. As anthropologist Margaret Mead puts it, "One of the oldest human needs is having someone wonder where you are when you don't come home at night."

We need to learn. And not only for a few years when we are young. We must be life-long learners who never stop growing, never cease to improve. For when we no longer grow, we stagnate. And when we stagnate, we die.

Finally, we need to leave a legacy. It is a basic desire to want our lives to count for something. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: "To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a little bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

These are four needs that must never be neglected. Live fully, love completely, learn constantly and leave something worthwhile behind. It is the path to success. And to joy.

Cows and Six Sigma

A funny read which I received from a GE employee...

Various Organizational philosophies explained in terms of 2 cows:

Socialism: You have 2 cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbour

Communism: You have 2 cows.The governmnet takes them both and provides you with milk.

Fascism: You have 2 cows.The government takes them both and sell you the milk.

Nazism: You have 2 cows.The government takes them and shoots you.

Bureaucracy: You have 2 cows.The government takes them both, shoots one, milks the other, pays you for the milk,and then pours it down the drain.

Capitalism: You have 2 cows.You sell one and buy a bull.

GE: You have 2 cows.You lay one off, force the other produce the milk of 4 cows, then act surprised when it drops dead or You have 2 cows. They take them both, expect you to MAKE your own cow, require the milk production of 8 cows, and impose a deadline prior to the cow being born.

GE-6 SIGMA: You have two cows. You lay one off and make a black belt of the other. Then spend six months mapping the process to understand why there has been a huge decrease in milk production.

Painting of Last Supper

The story of the painting of The Last Supper is extremely interesting and instructive, and two incidents connected with it afford a most convincing lesson on the effects of right thinking or wrong thinking in the life of a boy or girl, or of a man or woman.

Leonardo Da Vinci, the noted Italian artist painted the Last Supper. It took seven years for him to complete it. The figures representing the twelve Apostles and Christ himself were painted from living persons. The life-model for the painting of the figure of Jesus was chosen first.

When it was decided that Da Vinci would paint this great picture, hundreds and hundreds of young men were carefully viewed in an endeavor to find a face and personality exhibiting innocence and beauty, free from the scars and signs of dissipation caused by sin.

Finally, after weeks of laborious search, a young man nineteen years of age was selected as a model for the portrayal of Christ. For six months Da Vinci worked on the production of this leading character of his famous painting. During the next six years Da Vinci continued his labors on this sublime work of art. One by one fitting persons were chosen to represent each of the eleven Apostles -- with space being left for the painting of the figure representing Judas Iscariot as the final task of this masterpiece.

This was the Apostle, you remember, who betrayed his Lord for thirty pieces of silver. For weeks Da Vinci searched for a man with a hard, callous face, with a countenance marked by scars of avarice, deceit, hypocrisy, and crime. A face that would delineate a character who would betray his best friend.

After many discouraging experiences in searching for the type of person required to represent Judas, word came to Da Vinci that a man whose appearance fully met his requirements had been found in a dungeon in Rome, sentenced to die for a life of crime and murder. Da Vinci made the trip to Rome at once, and this man was brought out from his imprisonment in the dungeon and led out into the light of the sun. There Da Vinci saw before him a dark, swarthy man his long shaggy and unkempt hair sprawled over his face, which betrayed a character of viciousness and complete ruin. At last the famous painter had found the person he wanted to represent the character of Judas in his painting. By special permission from the king, this prisoner was carried to Milan where the picture was being painted. For months he sat before Da Vinci at appointed hours each day as the gifted artist diligently continued his task of transmitting, to his painting, this base character representing the traitor and betrayer of our Savior.

As he finished his last stroke, he turned to the guards and said, "I have finished. You may take the prisoner away". As the guards were leading their prisoner away, he suddenly broke loose from their control and rushed up to Da Vinci, crying as he did so, "Da Vinci, look at me. Do you not know who I am?" Da Vinci, with the trained eyes of a great character student, carefully scrutinized the man upon whose face he had constantly gazed for six months and replied, "No, I have never seen you in my life until you were brought before me out of the dungeon in Rome."

Then, lifting his eyes toward heaven, the prisoner said, "Oh God, have I fallen so low?" Then turning his face to the painter he cried, "Leonardo Da Vinci, look at me again for I am the same man you painted just seven years ago as the figure of Christ."

Joke: The Pope and the Cop

One day the Pope is coming to America in his Limo and he said to the driver, 'Why don't you let me drive for once.' The driver thinks to him self, 'Well I can't say no to him, he's the Pope.' So the driver pulls over and they change places. The Pope was having fun. After a while the driver taps on the window and tells the Pope, 'slow down a bit, you might get pulled over.'The Pope says, 'ahhh, don't worry about it, I'm the Pope.' So he rolls up the window and continues to drive very fast. After a few moments he gets pulled over. The cop walks to the car and the Pope rolls down the tinted window. The cop sees the Pope and says, 'oh, I, ehhh, sorry, can you hold on a minute.' The Pope says, 'sure'.The cop walks back to his car and radios back to the station. He says, 'guys I just pulled over some one really important.'
They ask who, 'The President?.'
'No more important.'
'The president of another country.'
'No more important.'
'An ambassador.'
'No even more important.'
'Well who is it.'
'I don't know, but the Pope is the chauffeur.'

You can make it happen

History abounds with tales of experts who were convinced that the ideas,plans and projects of others could never be achieved. However,accomplishment came to those who said, "I can make it happen."

The Italian sculptor Agostino d'Antonio worked diligently on a large piece of marble. Unable to produce his desired masterpiece, he lamented, "I can do nothing with it." Other sculptors also worked this difficult piece of marble, but to no avail. Michelangelo discovered the stone and visualized the possibilities in it. His "I-can-make-it-happen" attitude resulted in one of the world's masterpieces - David.

The experts of Spain concluded that Columbus's plans to discover a new and shorter route to the West Indies was virtually impossible. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand ignored the report of the experts. "I can make it happen," Columbus persisted. And he did. Everyone knew the world was flat, but not Columbus. The Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria, along with Columbus and his small band of followers, sailed to "impossible" new lands and thriving resources.

Even the great Thomas Alva Edison discouraged his friend, Henry Ford, from pursuing his fledgling idea of a motorcar. Convinced of the worthlessness of the idea, Edison invited Ford to come and work for him. Ford remained committed and tirelessly pursued his dream. Although his first attempt resulted in a vehicle without reverse gear, Henry Ford knew he could make it happen. And, of course, he did.

"Forget it," the experts advised Madame Curie. They agreed radium was a scientifically impossible idea. However, Marie Curie insisted, "I can make it happen."

Let's not forget our friends Orville and Wilbur Wright. Journalists,friends, armed forces specialists, and even their father laughed at the idea of an airplane. "What a silly and insane way to spend money. Leave flying to the birds," they jeered. "Sorry," the Wright brothers responded. "We have a dream, and we can make it happen." As a result, a place called Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, became the setting for the launching of their "ridiculous" idea.

Finally, as you read these accounts under the magnificent lighting of your environment, consider the plight of Benjamin Franklin. He was admonished to stop the foolish experimenting with lighting. What an absurdity and waste of time! Why, nothing could outdo the fabulous oil lamp. Thank goodness Franklin knew he could make it happen. You too can make it happen!

The Insignificant Man

Whenever I see programmes in Channels like NatGeo or Discovery related to natural calamities, there is a pretty common sentence which is said "It just goes to prove that nobody is bigger than nature". The purport of this statement did not strike me, until I saw these images.

Compare the size of the earth with other planets


Now compare it with Uranus & Neptune

Earth is the first planet on the first row of the picture.

Now Earth against Sun

Earth is the fifth planet on the first row of the picture.

Against Sun, Earth is like a dot. Think !! Where do you find yourself now?? Now imagine the creator of this universe???

I realised man is an insignificant entity in the whole scheme of nature. Yet we do so many things that does not befit our insignificant stature...just give it a thought.

Eve's Christmas

Choices...a right choice at the wrong moment or a wrong choice at the right moment, both of them are'nt any good. But having made a choice there is no going back in real life and I think we have to learn to accept the consequence of the choice we made. But just think if you have a chance to make the same choice again in your life and at the same point of time in which you made the choice earlier, how and what it would be?

This is the theme of the movie 'Eve's Christmas' which I watched on Monday. It's about a middle aged executive named Eve Simon, who has everything in life - job, status, money but she has nobody to share her feelings with. Coupled with this she has been having an affair with her exploitative Boss. Eve feels miserable in life and she attributes this to a choice she made few years ago. She had her Christmas-day wedding cancelled, since her ambition made her take up a job in New Jersey as against being a home maker in a small town. She happens to meet a guardian angel who takes her back in time...exactly a week before the day of her marriage. Now that she knows what is in store for her in future, what choices she makes forms the rest of the story. Do try to see it, if you get a chance.

There is an interesting dialogue between Eve and her mother, which I liked a lot. I may not be quoting verbatim but it goes something like this - "Honey! Before my marriage I was running a store. I had to give it up after my marriage. I don't have the store now...but I have your father, you and your brother. I have something now, which probably I wouldn't be having if I had made a different choice. Not for a moment I have regretted the choices I have made in life".

How they catch Monkeys

Monkey-hunters use a box with an opening at the top, big enough for the monkey to slide its hand in. Inside the box are nuts. The monkey grabs the nuts and now its hand becomes a fist. The monkey tries to get its hand out but the opening is big enough for the hand to slide in, but too small for the fist to come out. Now the monkey has a choice, either to let go off the nuts and be free forever or hang on to the nuts and get caught. Guess what it picks every time? You guessed it. He hangs on to the nuts and get caught. We are no different from monkeys. We all hang on to some nuts that keep us from going forward in life. We keep rationalising by saying, "I cannot do this because" and whatever comes after "because" are the nuts that we are hanging on to which are holding us back.

Successful people don't rationalise. Two things determine if a person will be a success: reasons and results. Reasons don't count while results do. A good advice for failure is: Don't think, don't ask and don't listen. Just rationalise.

Talk less...on Mobiles

Scary...but guess its safe to be careful.

A Burning Desire

A young man asked Socrates the secret to success. Socrates told the young man to meet him near the river the next morning. They met. Socrates asked the young man to walk with him toward the river. When the water got up to their neck, Socrates took the young man by surprise and ducked him into the water. The boy struggled to get out but Socrates was strong and kept him there until the boy started turning blue. Socrates pulled his head out of the water and the first thing the young man did was to gasp and take a deep breath of air. Socrates asked, "What did you want the most when you were there". The boy replied, "Air". Socrates said, "That is the secret to success. When you want success as badly as you wanted the air, then you will get it." There is no other secret.

A burning desire is the starting point of all accomplishment. Just like a small fire cannot give much heat, a weak desire cannot produce great result.

Looking for Gold

As a young Scots boy, Andrew Carnegie came to America and started doing odd jobs. He ended up as one of the largest steel manufacturers in the United States.

At one time he had 43 millionaires working for him. Several decades ago, a million dollars used to be a lot of money; even today it is a lot of money. Someone asked Mr.Carnegie how he dealt with people? Andrew Carnegie replied, "Dealing with people is like digging gold: When you go digging for an ounce of gold, you have to move tons of dirt to get an ounce of gold. But when you go digging, you don't go looking for dirt, you go looking for the gold."

What is your focus? Become a digger for gold. If you are looking
for what is wrong with people or with things, you will find
many. What are you looking for? Andrew Carnegie's reply has a very
important message. There is something positive in every person
and every situation. Sometimes we have to dig deep to look for
the positive because it may not be apparent.

Besides, we are so used to looking for what is wrong with other
people and situations, we forget to see what is right. Someone
once said that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

The One Without Sorrow

Influenced by a post in Tony's blog, I googled my way to find a link about King Ashoka, the Great(273 - 232 BC), whose name in Sanskrit translates to "The One Without Sorrow".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka

In the history of the world there have been thousands of kings and emperors who called themselves 'Their Highnesses', 'Their Majesties' and 'Their Exalted Majesties' and so on. They shone for a brief moment, and as quickly disappeared. But Ashoka shines and shines brightly like a bright star, even unto this day. So wrote H.G. Wells, British historian and noble seeker of the truth about mankind's tumultuous past.

Ashoka was once a bloodthirsty tyrrant, who wanted to annex all the provinces in ancient India, under his mighty empire which was even larger than the present day Republic of India. But the Kalinga War, changed the course of his life and his thoughts. The pretext for the start of the Kalinga War (265 BC or 263 BC) is uncertain. One of his soldiers might have fled to Kalinga and found official refuge there. This enraged Ashoka immensely. He was advised by his ministers to attack Kalinga for this act of treachery. Ashoka then asked Kalinga's royalty to submit before his supremacy. When they defied this diktat, Ashoka sent one of his generals to Kalinga to make them submit.

The general and his forces were, however, completely routed through the skilled tactics of Kalinga's commander-in-chief. Ashoka, baffled at this defeat, attacked with the greatest invasion ever recorded in Indian history until then. Kalinga put up a stiff resistance, but they were no match for Ashoka's brutal strength. The whole of Kalinga was plundered and destroyed: Ashoka's later edicts say that about 100,000 people were killed on the Kalinga side and 10,000 from Ashoka's army; thousands of men and women were deported.

As the legend goes, one day after the war was over, Ashoka ventured out to roam the city and all he could see were burnt houses and scattered corpses. This sight made him sick and he cried the famous quotation, "What have I done?"

(Iam reminded of these famous sayings:
"My God, what have we done?" - Robert Lewis, the co-pilot of Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb.

J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Scientist involved in the Atomic Bomb project code named Manhattan Project, though ecstatic about the success of the project, quoted a remembered fragment from the Bhagavad Gita. "I am become Death," he said, "the destroyer of worlds." Ken Bainbridge, the test director, told Oppenheimer, "Now we're all sons of bitches." )

The brutality of the conquest led him to adopt Buddhism and he used his position to propagate the relatively new philosophy to new heights, as far as ancient Rome and Egypt. During the remaining portion of Ashoka's reign, he pursued an official policy of nonviolence or ahimsa and adopted the dharma, which consists of basic virtuous teachings that can be practiced by all men regardless of social origins. "Dharma" is derived from the Sanskrit word for "duty".

Ashoka saw the dharma as a righteous path showing the utmost respect for all living things. The dharma would bring harmony and unity to India in the form of much needed compassion. Serving as a guiding light, a voice of conscious that is the dharma can lead one to be a respectful and highly responsible human being. Edward D'cruz interprets the Ashokan dharma as a "religion to be used as a symbol of a new imperial unity and a cementing force to weld the diverse and heterogeneous elements of the empire". Ashoka's intent was to instigate "a practice of social behavior so broad and benevolent in its scope, that no person, no matter what his religion, could reasonably object to it".

One need not become an Ashoka to stop bloodshed or go all out to found a new religion. I guess it would be enough, before training a Gun on a fellow human being, if one gives a thought that the person he is going to kill is somebody's son, somebody's brother or somebody's husband and that he has a family to return to like himself.

Iam ending this longish post with few lines, from one of the beautiful songs by Michael Jackson,Heal The World.

"There's a place in your heart
And I know that it is love
And this place could be much
Brighter than tomorrow.
And if you really try
You'll find there's no need to cry
In this place you'll feel
There's no hurt or sorrow.
There are ways to get there
If you care enough for the living
Make a little space, make a better place."

How bad is your temper?

Well...Check it out here...

The Road Not Taken

Often times, we wonder about the path that we have taken in our life. I have done it so many times over and Iam sure, each one of us must have had this feeling at some point of life, that if I had done this thing at that point of time, my life would have been like this. We do wonder about the road not taken...I enjoyed this poem when I read this at high school, even with my little knowledge about life at that point of time. I found this poem by Robert Frost at Thiru's blog today and thought of sharing the same here. I guess life and the experience it offers at various points, makes one wise and his thoughts mellow.

Anecdotes

Should women have children after 35?
No, 35 children are enough!
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Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip round the Sun..
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Your future depends on your dreams
So go to sleep !
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Work fascinates me
I can look at it for hours !
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God made relatives;
Thank God we can choose our friends
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A good discussion is like a miniskirt;
Short enough to pertain interest and long enough to cover the subject
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A drunk was hauled into court. Mister, the judge began, you've been brought here for drinking..
Great, the drunk exclaimed. When do we get started?
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Can you do anything that other people can't?
Sure, I can read my handwriting.
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Whom are you working for?
Same people. My wife and four kids..
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I heard you have a cat that can say her own name..
Yes. Meow..
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Divorce has become so common that my wife and I are staying married just to be different..
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When a wife was asked: What book do you like the best?
She answers: My husband's cheque book..

Joke : The Computer Test

Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who managed to get the most out of their computer. This had been going on for days and God was tired of hearing all of the bickering. God said, "Cool it. I am going to set up a test that will run two hours and I will judge who does the better job."

So down they sat at the keyboards and typed away. They moused. They did spreadsheets. They wrote reports. They sent faxes. They sent e-mails. They sent out e-mail with attachments. They downloaded. They did some genealogy reports. They made cards. They did every known job.

But just a few minutes before the two hours were up, lightening flashed across the sky. The thunder rolled and the rains came down hard, and of course the electricity went off.

Satan fumed and fussed and he ranted and raved, all to no avail. The electricity stayed off. After a bit, the rains stopped and the electricity came back on. Satan screamed, "I lost it all when the power went off. What am I going to do? What happened to Jesus' work?"

Jesus sat and smiled. Again Satan asked about the work that Jesus had done. As Jesus turned his computer back on, the screen glowed and when he pushed "print" it was all there.

"How did he do it?" Satan asked. God smiled and said......


(ready for this?)



" Jesus saves".

GRE Students

An exaggerated forward taking a light-hearted dig at GRE students. I got to know certain new words, which I hadn't known before.

A GRE STUDENT: All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not
truly auriferous.
A NORMAL PERSON : All that glitters is not gold.

A GRE STUDENT : Sorting on the part of must be interdicted.
A NORMAL PERSON : Beggars are not choosers

A GRE STUDENT : Male cadavers are incapable of rendering any testimony.
A NORMAL PERSON : Dead men tell no tales

A GRE STUDENT : Neophite's serendipity.
A NORMAL PERSON : Beginner's luck

A GRE STUDENT : A revolving lithic conglomerate accumulates no congeries of small, green, biophytic plant.
A NORMAL PERSON : A rolling stone gathers no moss

A GRE STUDENT: Members of an avian species of identical plumage tend to congregate.
A NORMAL PERSON : Birds of the same feather flock together

A GRE STUDENT : Pulchritude possesses solely cutaneous profundity.
A NORMAL PERSON : Beauty is only skin deep

A GRE STUDENT : Freedom from incrustations of grime is contiguous to rectitude.
A NORMAL PERSON : Cleanliness is godliness

A GRE STUDENT : It is fruitless to become lachrymose of recipitately departed lactile fluid.
A NORMAL PERSON : There's no use crying over spilt milk

A GRE STUDENT : Eschew the implement of correction and vitiate the scion.
A NORMAL PERSON : Spare the rod and spoil the child

A GRE STUDENT : The stylus is more potent than the rapier.
A NORMAL PERSON : The pen is mightier than the sword

A GRE STUDENT : It is fruitless to attempt to indoctrinate a superannuated canine with innovative maneuvers.
A NORMAL PERSON : You can't try to teach an old dog new tricks

A GRE STUDENT : Surveillance should precede saltation.
A NORMAL PERSON : Look before you leap

A GRE STUDENT : Scintillate, scintillate,asteroid minim.
A NORMAL PERSON : Twinkle,twinkle, little star

A GRE STUDENT : The person presenting the ultimate cachinnation possesses thereby the optimal cachinnation.
A NORMAL PERSON : He who laughs last, laughs the best

A GRE STUDENT : Exclusive dedication to necessitous chores without interludes of hedonistic diversion renders Jack a hebetudinous fellow.
A NORMAL PERSON : All work and no play makes jack a dull boy

A GRE STUDENT : Individuals who make their abodes in vitreous edifices would be advised to refrain from catapulting petrious projectiles.
A NORMAL PERSON : People who live in glass houses should not throw stones

A GRE STUDENT : Where there are visible vapors having their provenance in ignited carbonaceous materials, there is conflagration.
A NORMAL PERSON : Where there's smoke, there's fire

Management Study

Management Case Study No.1
The manager of a large corporation got a heart attack, and the Doctor told him to go for several weeks to a farm to relax. The guy went to a farm, and after a couple of days he was very bored, so he asked the farmer to give him some job to do. The farmer told him to clean the shit of the cows. The farmer thought that to somebody coming from the city, working the whole life sitting in an office, it will take over a week to finish the job, but to his surprise the manager finished the job in less than one day. The next day the farmer gave to the manager a more difficult job: to cut the heads of 500 chickens. The farmer was sure that the manager will not be able to do the job, but at the end of the day the job was done. The next morning, as most of the jobs in the farm were done, the farmer asked the manager to divide a bag of potatoes in two boxes: one box with small potatoes, and one box with big potatoes. At the end of the day the farmer saw that the manager was sitting in front of the potatoes bag, but the two boxes were empty. The farmer asked the manager: "How is
that you did such difficult jobs during the first days, and now you cannot do this simple job?" The manager answered: "Listen, all my life I'm cutting heads and dealing with shit, but now you ask me to make decisions!"

Management Case Study No.2
A man goes into a pet shop to buy a parrot. The shop owner points to three identical looking parrots on a perch and says, "The parrot on the left costs 500 dollars".
"Why does the parrot cost so much," asks the man. The shop owner says, "well, the parrot knows how to use a computer". The man then asks about the next parrot to be told that this one costs 1,000 dollars because it can do everything the other parrot can do plus it knows how to use the UNIX operating system. Naturally, the increasingly startled man asks about the third Parrot to be told that it costs 2,000 dollars. Needless to say this begs the question, "What can it do?" To which the shop owner replies, "To be honest I have never seen it do a thing, but the other two call him Boss!"

Its the thought that matters!

An old man lived alone in Minnesota in US. He wanted to spade
his potato garden,but it was very hard work. His only son, who would have helped him, was in prison.

The old man wrote a letter to his son and mentioned his situation: "Dear Son, I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my potato garden this year. I hate to miss doing the garden, because your mother always loved planting time. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If you were here,all my troubles would be over.I know you would dig the plot for me, if you weren't in prison. Love, Dad."

Shortly, the old man received this telegram: "For Heaven's sake, Dad,don't dig up the garden!! That's where I buried the GUNS!!" At 4 a.m. the next morning, a dozen FBI agents and local police officers showed up and dug up the entire garden without finding any guns. Confused,the old man wrote another note to his son telling him what happened. His son's reply was: Go ahead and plant your Potatoes, Dad. It's the best
I could do for you from here.

"No matter where you are in the world, if you have decided to do something deep from your heart you can do it. It is the thought that matters it is not where you are or where the person is".