Questions

The world's a nice place, but with a lot of unanswered quandaries which we are let out to find an answer to! Most of the times, you do not know what you seek, and settle for what you get. You do not know, and generally do not think of what life would have given you had you not taken a certain decision you did. It did happen to me that some decisions defined a certain path of life, and I almost assumed that is what life is. But then, as destiny would have it, I got a chance to explore it further and now am amazed how much lay there unexplored.

The sight of the mind is confined to the rulebook of the life imposed on to us by the immediate society - family, friends, teachers etc etc. The realms of what we could do, what we are destined to do or what we could just take a shot with no cares on success or failure are just not thought of. This is probably a country thing, or just my assumption. But it is true, not just in my case but most cases I have seen.

One thing that appealed to me strongly when I watched The Social Network was that the United States, as a nation, gave much more independence to radical thought and ability to explore. Not that I complain someone stopped me from any of it, but that was a setup that left me in awe.

What is the boundary to what we can do? What is the boundary to what life can offer us? What are the joys and sorrows of life that are made for us? These are questions we all have at the back of our mind, but dread to ask or if we do not dread, we have no clue who to ask.

Life never threw at me lemons I could make lemonade of, but it always threw at me demons I had to face or succumb to. If everything went as expected, it wouldn't be half as fun! And while this uncertainity and unexpectedness goes on, I continue to have fun on the run!

Here I am

Time has passed quite briskly, or else how could one explain the difference in timestamp between this and my previous post? Feels like I had taken this short break from blogging, but then when I log back on to twitter I feel like one of those shady characters who are imprisoned for several years, and when finally released are amazed by the speed at which civilisation has moved ahead leaving them aeons behind. Bloggers seems to have done that to me. Several things have changed, but then treading through alien lands is nothing new to me, at least now!

While in college, I always looked forward to having a job. I would imagine my salary getting credited, and how thrilled I would be to get that money and spend, and all that childish crap one goes through in college. Ya, it did and does happen sometimes but then the job I looked at from my college boy eye is entirely different from what I do for a living now. This is much more challenging, and much more intriguing.

Job has kept me busy and off from several things. College was much different. I now interact very less with my friends. Definition of fun has now emerged to be a quiet dinner and a sound sleep. And ya, even funnier part of my life is acting very serious all day. I havent yet realised if I appear serious, or am serious or act that way for the heck of it to eke out a living. I just be so, and at the end of the day, manage to pull through all the requirements of my job!

That apart, my job has brought me another step closer to the rural hinterlands. Several times earlier, I had tiny stints/rendezvous with the rural life, but never as close as this one. I now live in a small town, and commute every day to several remote villages where my non-A/C Maruti 800 is quite an item! That - not the recognition - has added some zing to my job.

Its been very long since I typed more than 160 characters. I send out 10s of SMSs everyday and an equal number of tweets. Probably that has kept me from missing blogger. But then, how many ever T20s and ODIs you watch, a test is a Test... Real Class! Probably that is what Blogger to me is!

When I think of what exactly is the meaning or reason for this post, or will I continue blogging, I have no answers... All that I know is that Here I am, after a long time... And what was I doing all this while?! Enjoying life, job and the monies! :D And ya, what made me break my sabbatical? This post - after a good 2 yrs on this blog!

Bhagwan Inc

Am neither religious nor an atheist. I believe in god as a supreme power whom you revert to when you feel you need support, strength, motivation, inspiration and all the other siblings of theirs. Sometimes I find god in solitude, sometimes in music, sometimes in my parents, sometimes in friends and so on. Idol worship is definitely not my cup of tea, but I understand that it is a way of reaching out to that supreme power for many a fellow Indian.

I was appalled a couple of days back when on a trip to Tirupati I realised that God is no more that divine power or that idol people worship, it is a business now. The only thing I would expect from a pilgrimage with family is to have a look at some exquisite temples, some ancient cultural anecdotes to listen to and some soothing sanskrit chanting and to see people around and feel amazed at how they could travel all those miles to stand in serpentine queues, wait for long hours and then when offered a half-a-minute rendezvous with god's idol, they just close their eyes, pray for a second and move away or rather mowed away by the security guards. And ya, the catch is that if you are ready to donate a few kgs of gold, a few bundles of notes, then you can hang around a couple of minutes more.This happens in almost all temples, in every corner of every city.

But, this seems to have taken too big a turn now. The Kalyanam of Lord Venkateshwara in Tirumala temple now has a commentary in English. Though my sister applauds the move, I think otherwise. What do you think people go all the way to Tirumala for? To pray god in peace, get mesmerised in the divine chantings and take home a feeling of satisfaction. For people like me, the feeling of a pilgrimage sinks in when you hear those indecipherable sanskrit chants and try to fathom some of them, and through the proceedings and anecdotes understand a few intricacies of culture. But now, the peace that one could incur through that vedic chanting, that divine peace of a puja atmosphere is now replaced by English commentary that keeps telling you what the Lord is doing on the stage in the ceremony, or rather what the Pujari is doing on his behalf. I felt disgusted to listen to that English commentary because it only means a loss of identity for a ritual. It makes me feel that all this religion, pilgrimage etc etc are all fake, they are just ways to promise god to those dollar wielding Indian diaspora who are ready to shell out expensive gifts to god.

We need not explain the unknowns about what our religion and culture are, mainly because the main part of a religion and culture come from the local flair attached to it. The day we lose that, we are just selling our religion which is what seems to be happening now. This is nothing better than all those venom-spewing quotes by politicians creating religious differences.

All we need to see what else does money make people do... These are days of customising god to suit the most wealthy customers the name of religion could lure!

Jen awarded me the Egel Nest Blog award. Thanks for the award, Jen!


Amidst exams and other pressing commitments, it is hard to reflect upon anything interesting. All you have in mind is stupid portions, deadlines and other plebeian things. It is difficult to transcend the obvious, but then that's life.

Recently watched a movie on football, and many scenes in the movie made me ruminate about the sense that Rudyard Kipling's inspirational poem 'If' makes in such situations. Fished for the poem, and here it is:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

The poem is a time-less classic, and continues to inspire to date. There are many anecdotes about it at the player's entrance to the Wimbledon Central Court where it is inscribed. It is a great lesson for life, I especially love the line 'If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken'. Hope you guys enjoy the poem!

5 Star

Supriya Narang tagged me to write a 5-minute monologue, called FMORT - Five Minutes of Random Thought - where I think random things and punch on the keyboard about whatever is going on in my mind. One of my friends, Vijay Pratap Singh, way back in 2004 asked me to close my eyes and randomly write whatever my mind is feeling like on a piece of paper. It is a great stress-reliever, he believed and today, we believe.

Okie, now for the tag. Its 2204 hours on my watch and Shoot!

Where do people get these ideas of tagging from? Is it their urge to think of a new tag or are they so vela that they think of such things? Dont they think of what would happen if the tag never caught on, and people dint reply? I appreciate their efforts, indeed. As Richard Branson's book title goes, 'Screw It, Just Do It' should be our motto.

Airlines in India are a big pain in the ass. I have succumbed to all types of delays, cancellations and the woes always continue. And coming to India, I am a patriot but I think we are bloody racists. Though we say we are at the recieving end of racism, we infact practice racism, and the worst kind of it I must add. How many times have to had an air-hostess or a steward on board who has a grayish complexion? How many times have you been a victim of people prefering people of their state, caste, religion or color over you? This is omnipresent. We need to change a lot.

Guys just cannot stick to their seats in a flight :S In a goddamn two hour domestic flight, they want to go to the loo five times, as if it was the best place to be on a Boeing, and ask for weird things like Fruits after a meal. Is the air hostess your wife or are you in a marriage, pal?! :P

Diwali preparations itself were awesome in Delhi. I realised what exactly festive mood is. Shopping, every car loaded with gifts, every face on road smiling, every street lit up... Wow... That was a feast to the eye, just that I could do with a little less traffic! :P

okie, the bell rings... Time's up...

My Five Minutes to fame are over, and my five victims as under:

Rahul Pallerla muuuhaaahaaahaa
Saraswathi Mukkai
Abhishek Deshpande
Jen
Revati Ananda

Meddling in the Middle...

Ya, I was! In the middle of the weekend, on the midnight of Saturday, I have been wondering what to do, and I remembered something I wanted to do... Answer Jen's tag! :D

The tag asks me to do certain things, with my middle name, unfortunately which I don't have! So, taking a cue from Saraswathi, I decided to use my second name, but it's longer (Kodithala) than my first name (Naresh). Lazy bugger that I am, I chose my first name to expand each of those letters into qualities. This is where I have been meddling in middle, between what Jen told and Saraswathi did! :D

Now, this tag asks me to pick my middle name and map my attributes to each of its letters, and then tag an equal number of others. Here is me doing the honors:

N - Narcissist - I am a die hard narcissist people! I love myself. I believe in 'Love thyself, then only any one else'. I believe satisfaction and loving your life are important to lead life happily. Otherwise, there is no point doing whatever we do. After all, it is us we live for primarily, right?! This is like being in a business, a company must look to increase its own revenue and hence profits, even before its staff happiness, shareholder's value etc... Once it is self sufficient, everything else will fall in place. Hence, people, be narcissistic!

A - Available - Whatever, whoever, however a friend might be, if I consider him/her important enough, there is no way I am unavailable to them. I dont care how frequent people stay in touch, but if I respect them or like them, no way I ditch them! I like standing up to committments and responsibilites. I take pleasure in making friends happy! But ya, it takes a lot for someone to come into this bracket. Though I am socially well on-the-move always, not every friend comes into this bracket, and who come in, don't need to be told. The situations speak for themselves! :D

R - Ruminating - I don't chew the cud, obviously! I reflect deeply on everything, every one, every instant, though not instantly, but overtime. I ruminate so much on people that I feel everyone does good things, and bad things happen only unintentionally. I dont get frustrated or excited easily. I focus on stuff and then take my decisions.

E - Easy Rider - Keep Smiling... Live Life to the fullest. There is no use fretting and frowning. A smile is the most beautiful thing on this earth, no matter whose face it adorns. I firmly believe that one who can smile amongst adversities is the toughest man, and I always try to be on!

S - Sleepy - I am a log! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

H - Hard Working - Seems oxy-moronic, eh?! But its true. I believe in hardwork . If hard work is combined with right amount of passion, there's no stopping and I believe that is what we need to look for! Seems preachy, but utterly true!

So much for knowing Naresh ;) Now on to others...

As per Comrade Jen's orders, we need to look for 6 gullible people, and here's the list:
Rahul Pallerla, my evergreen tag victim!
Shikha Tomar She always surprises up her sleeve for me...
Reva Ananda Is radio her middle name?! :P
Diwakar Kaushik This shall be interesting...
Abhishek Deshpande Needs a break from CAT prep and hence the tag ;)
Amod Verma Welcome back to active blogging! :P

My Best Friend's Wedding

There is a happiness in being happy for others, and one of the happiest occasions is to see people you like the most happy! I had one such great occasion recently. On the 5th of September 2007, one of the best of my friends, Ramya Krishna Devineni entered the nuptial knot with Praveen. Was great to be a part of the festivities of their marriage! Though wanted to be a bigger part of it, call it duty or obligations, had to curtail my part! :|

Indian weddings have a wonderful charm! Its great to see so many people happy for two happiest souls, bless them and enjoy their time. People indulge in interesting conversations, varying from politics to marriages to sports to what not! At a marriage, you could never know how time passed just by observing people :D For someone interested in studying Consumer Behavior, I wud say an Indian Marriage is the best place! :P

The best thing about marriage is meeting people, old and new. It gives you a great feeling when you bump into someone you least expect, or someone you have met ages ago, someone you never knew. Marriages are the best places for socialisation, I guess!

Coming to this marriage, it was personally very cherished for me for it was the first wedding among my friends and it was my best friend getting married. I enjoyed it the most. I must say, the bride-groom pair is one of the best I have every seen! They match each other so perfectly! May God Bless the couple with happiness for life! :)

PS: Thanks to PD for the wonderful pic! This is the best of the lot according to me! :)

Pursuing Power...

Power is a key word of life. Power is what that drives the world, according to me. Today, for instance in India, though we celebrate young and emerging India, we are all witness to the fact if you are powerful, you can go scathe-free. I am talking not just of politicians, film stars and filthy rich real estate people escaping jail, but am talking of our daily life.

To me, power today is money and influence. They will always mean power to me and I shall strive for them. It is probably the most common sight on the busy Delhi roads that uber rich people driving all those Mercedes, BMW models often get down on to the road to settle scores with guileless autowallas just to show off that they are powerful.

As we talk of equality, change in the country, and sense prevailing due to education, we are just fooling ourselves. Very often people relate the IT boom to the success of young India in moving the country forward. They often cite examples of well-to-do IT professionals donating to NGOs, teaching kids and all. To me, it all seems like a faff. I do appreciate their benevolence a bit, but somewhere in me, there is a cynic who tells me it isn't their magnanimity but their drive to show off their power and in that manner, get some influence. I may be wrong though! The striking thought that doesn't allow me to accept their nobility right away is that if they are all that noble, enlightened, educated and civilised, what is the frigging problem in following lane discipline on the roads yaar?! I haven't seen their attitudes changing too. Its just their lifestyles that have changed, and that is because of the dollars that the West throws at the so-called IT Services sector of India, which hasn't done any noticeable service to the country, except boosting the mall and pub culture.

As we embark upon things like 'Lead India', which I can't make any sense of, are we really competent and enlightened enough? Do we know what we are, before we announce what we want in others? Was reading a kid, aged 11, with no offence to him and all my respect to his intellect, speaking to a ToI correspondent talking about how a leader should be, and how Gandhiji was 'all giving and sacrificing'. Am sure he spoke that out of just the prodding of that media man who must have been on the prowl for his day's dough through some filler in the newspaper.

It seems to me like a pity that we are in a hurry to jump to judgements. We are mistaking power to be enlightenment. Being powerful isn't being intelligent or mature or even sensible! It is just being wealthy, influential and likes. It is a fact , infact a maxim or I would say 'Eleventh Commandment' that 'You cannot ignore power centers'. But we must not stoop to a level that we assuage these rich and getting richer segment of the society, all the while ignoring the real meaning of society. These aren't people we should be targetting to build a better nation. When our eye is in the wrong place, it doesn't matter if we have shot in the bull's eye!

LOST...

No... Its not the series I am talking of, but its a serious issue I am talking of! :( I dont remember any random mouse clicks on my Edit Template page of Blogger, but I am horrified to see almost half of my sidebar missing :(

I have lost a couple of widgets, 3-4 icons and all, n none of them bothers me as much as the fact that I have lost atleast half of my blogroll :'(

Does anyone know is there a chance to revert back to a lost template? I know its a stupid thing to ask for it isnt possible, but just trying! :)

Am hunting for some backup of my blogroll. I used to edit the html and add new links and now, am left licking my wounds :( Probably its time to use blogrolling!

History Repeats...

Life always comes a full circle, they say, or so I believe... Coming to the matter....

Two years back, same to same season, same to same reason, but college change... What is the action??? ORKUT BLOCKED.... :((((

That was me trying to enact a popular regional dialogue that had audience in splits, but my audience doesn't understand it, I know. Coming back to basics, the point is that IIT Delhi, god knows what it was doing all these days when there were country-wide debates about orkut, suddenly woke up and blocked Orkut.

I felt nostalgic about this, cos when this happened in DA-IICT in June 2005, there were tears shed, revolts announced and results achieved.

History has repeated itself now, what is going to happen?! I keep my fingers crossed for orkut!

To Be or Not to Be!

We are often dissatisfied with what we are! This is the premise that runs the world. The day we are satisfied, we are complacent and that means we are sleeping on a bed of sand. You wouldnt know when it got brushed off, and you are already on the ground.

We always move from one level of satisfaction of self to the other, never reaching it 100%. In a session on Branding, my prof made a valid point. There are always two levels in life - 'How good we are' and 'how good we want to be' and there is always a gap between them, for that is what propels life. It is this gap that we wish to hide from the external world and this is where brands play an efficient role. You are not as arrogant, but you want to be. So, what do you do? You probably wear a tee that has a nasty slogan or ride a bike that has been remodelled to show that you are mean. There are many such activities for each emotion and action!

But to me, the biggest wonder is whether education also falls into that category? If Brands are products that have etched in your mind, Is Education a Brand, given that it is a product? If it is a brand, it should only help you perceive yourself better than what you are, helping you portray the image that you always wanted to, but education isnt that. It is true value-add. So where does the line lie? Where does one know if he has really transcended his original self and has moved a step towards being what he wanted to be? and if there is something that has helped him move towards what he wanted to be, is it still a product or is it an integral part of him? Should products not be integrated into being?

One Night at CEP

This was long ago, but I wrote a novella for JAM last year! Never linked it on my blog, in fact, I forgot about it, but when was chatting with a friend and fished out the link which was still on my orkut profile, I thought why not post it here too! Shud have done this long ago, but better late than never, I guess!

Here it is: One Night @ CEP

Its an adaptation, or anything else you would like to call it, of Chetan Bhagat's 'One Night @ Call Center' to suit the nativities of DA-IICT, my alma mater, my love! :D

PS: Its a long read! Read it at your own risk! :D

YOU

Mirror, Mirror, Mirror on the wall... What is the greatest brand of all?

YOU, your honor!

That is the eternal truth of the world. If one had to sum up the existence of man kind in one word, that would be branding. It is a naked truth that we all survive on branding, our own individual branding. We want to be associated as something or someone in other's minds. When it comes to perceptions, we seldom ask ourselves what we are, we generally ask what others think of us! We try to portray ourselves to others to make a statement. We brand ourselves. We brand ourselves as go-getters, arrogant, jubilant, insane or whatever! And who makes the megabucks in this frenzy? Its the brands, the real ones this time! Everybody who wants to be branded as a dynamic person like Amitabh, wants to flaunt Reid and Taylor. Everyone who wants to look cool flaunts a MotoRazr or MotoRockr. Of course, no if is if and no but is but until Hypothesis Testing has been done and the Null Hypothesis rejected. But then, the very fact that there is gut and gumption to propose the hypothesis means this holds some value.

If we ever thought Branding self is a radical, new concept, we are wrong. It dates back to decades and as much as I could dig out, there has been solid evidence exactly 10 years back when Fast Company magazine made a mention of Brand You in one of its 1997 editions. The magazine spoke of realising what you are, and planning your career envisaging yourself as a brand as far as in 1997.

In fact, everything we do is for branding. Blogging is a sort of branding exercise. We could blog about everything that happens in our lives. Irky neighbors, pesky teachers, gorgeous women we see, filthy roads we tread on and many many more. But we do not. We consciously choose what we blog on when we want to brand ourselves.

Why do we brand ourselves like this?

The basic crux of a product is as follows:



The true you that you are is the CORE, but it gets embroiled in how you present yourselves, and further gets a face-lift through what others perceive of you. Without even your conscious effort, you start branding yourself.

And then, why not brand?! It is important to let people know what you are, and in the world where customer is the king, you should truly play to the galleries. If an employer wants a certain kind of candidate, ofcourse you should brand yourself as an enterprising candidate for the same!

So, what is Brand You?! Look into yourselves and see what you as a real brand are, and market it well! Life is all about Marketing!

Products and Habits

Today in the hour of Project Management, an illustrious and knowledgeable professor whom I admire a lot, mentioned about the analogy between brands and us. A simple thing like wearing shirt has so many connotations. It is a symbol of what you want others to feel about you.

While talking of how consumer behavior is closely knitted with what you perceive and what you want others to perceive of yourselves, the discussion landed up on whether products make habits or habits make products. It is something worth pondering upon. The professor just made the statement and left it at that.

In hindsight, I realise it is a profound observation of the society. For example, we never had an urge to sit on sofas and converse over coffee for long hours in an expensive setting until Barista and Cafe Coffee Day beckoned. We had a habit of having coffee, and these products stormed the market and groomed our habits in a certain way. The same is the situation with Big Bazaar, which as Kishore Biyani mentions in his autobiographical 'It Happened In India' is a gap-filler between the rich and poor customers of the country. Earlier the B and C consumer class of the country always bought goods from mom-and-pop stores and never dared to enter the so-called fancy departmental stores. They feared high rates and sophisticated products. With the advent of Big Bazaar, lower strata of society today thinks departmental, and thats because of the cost-competitiveness that product called Big Bazaar brought into the market.

Talking in such a tone, one tends to conclude that every innovation is in fact a habit-maker. As it is, the common strata of the society will never have aspirations to change things. An average Indian is busy with his work, family and other things. He always tends to get his work done with things available rather than look for making or ordering things that can do work his way. Hence, his habits are infact a slave to his choice of products.

Are we so fickle and product-oriented that we cannot stand stern on our habits? I really cant imagine what all those stranded in traffic bikers of Bangalore did earlier when there were no i-pods. I cannot imagine having a cup of coffee, however heavenly it is, at Saravana Bhavan while chatting with friends for at least 4-5 hours without any interruption. The waiter there could get physical if you tried that. The point is that with offer of new products, we groomed new habits. This means the personality of individuals and a society is broadly defined by the products the society produces and uses. Harley Davidson produced mean machines and made the western youth freaky bikers, while Hero Honda made 100CC and made the Indian youth ready for marriage! :P

Whatever the fact, it seems to me that our habits are the shadows that emanate out of the light that the product emanates! So, when we define our character or personality, what do we look for?! The shadow or the light that causes it? Are we so inconsequential that an enigmatic thing whose existence is always a debate, which is caused by some external object defines us while we dwell in the paradox that we created both, yet they command us!

EoF

Nope... This isnt any End of File... It is end of a fairytale... Another fairy tale called vacation! Every brings with it amazing moments with friends, parents and siblings... It is so tough to leave home to college after a vacation, especially to a place where it takes ten minutes to open the Create Post page in Blogger :P

The first thing we bargain for a career is family, and we say we do everything we do for our family. How fair is this?

Coming to college, it feels hmmm... ok to be back in college. Its a new beginning. It is very strange to have a 3 month layoff from the campus in a 20 month programme. It kinds of pulls away from your mind the 8 months of memories enscribed on your mind, and when you reach back to ensue the remaining part of the programme, you feel like you are starting everything all over again. Anyway, since the action hasnt all begun yet, cant think this feeling for granted too!

Back to career-making, IIM-B has come out with a grading mechanism where it says it considers scoring patterns from high school itself. What if someone, a late starter like me may be, wakes up towards the end of his college, realises his interest and makes an earnest attempt to make a career?! Should his high school or something which he calls past pull him back?

This raises the fundamental question of time in my mind. What is the time when someone should realise about their career? In my high school, I remember myself as the boy raving about his new bicycle, craving for an outing with parents, trying out new panipuri stalls in the colony. I never knew I had to marry and have kids and raise a family, and support it! I mean, I saw others doing it, but it never struck to my cognizance that I had to do it one day and hence I better plan. It all fell into place with the course of time.

So, where does that put us? Does that mean, irrespective of what you would be doing later, you just try and ace everything you study? Doesnt that typecast probable brilliant minds into study machines?! Doesnt that inhibit the intellectual capacities of young minds only into books? Not that I would have been an Einstein had I not been co-erced to study, I would have atleast tried my hand at something else, I would have probably learnt something which I dont probably know now... This must have been what most of us felt at one point or the other in time.

Where does this leave us?! Should we live for a career or make a career to live? A successful career should have passion, motivation and loads of zeal according to me, but it should all be topped with a sense and sensibility to make sense to what you really are, and where you really belong to! It is indeed not about money, honey!

The CON Factor!

Your personality is a set of beliefs that you accrue over all your life that you have lived. These beliefs can be of various types - ones that you have learnt from your parents, those you have observed from others lives, and also those which you believe because you have supreme faith in the person who has that belief!

Eating is a result of hunger, and similarly belief is a result of either Conviction or Confidence. When you say something all by yourself, it is because you have Conviction in it, and when you say it because someone else has conviction in it, you say it because you have confidence in the person who has conviction in that belief.

To me, there exists a fine line between Conviction and Confidence, and when we say something it is not always because we are convinced and have conviction about it, but most of the times it is because we have conviction in it.

Conviction, as per Merriam Webster, is a: a strong persuasion or belief b: the state of being convinced and Confidence, from the same source, is b: reliance on another's discretion.

So, it is confidence in my mother that I agreed taking bath is good for us when I was a child, and it was my conviction, after falling down from a table, that it is advisable not to dance on edges of high tables when you do not want to be hurt.

Confidence and Conviction are what differentiate between the real and good Sales people. It is a known, understood and assumed fact that Sales people must be confident. I don't say this out of conviction, cos I have not had any proper experience in Sales yet, but I say this out of confidence that I have gathered from many knowledgeable sources. When you gather knowledge or learnings of it from others, you gain confidence in an accepted faith and you tend to patronise it, all the time keeping the baton of responsibility on the person from whom you have mustered that confidence. Where as, if you have experienced it first hand, what you have is conviction and this is what gives confidence to others in you.

At Sales, if you are confident, you could be in. But, you could sustain or rather make others stand up to it only if you have conviction. Consider a sales person at an LCD television store, if he has conviction about the product he is selling it comes naturally to him to persuade or rather suggest his customers into buying his product because he can see where his product stands better than other televisions in the market. Where as, if he is just confident, all he can do is talk to the customer and probably force one or two into buying it, but never can he communicate the brand completely to the customer. That is the difference between conviction and confidence. Confidence can give you a start, but conviction is what takes you where you should actually go.

Towards the end, you would naturally realise that confidence that my posts are readable might have come from previous posts, but this post could give you conviction that it indeed takes lots of confidence and insanity to bear through all the crap I dole out to you here! :P

Happy Reading...

No

The toughest word to say out in the English Language is probably the easiest to write... NO... Thats the word, two letters that appear in the same order next to each other in the English alphabet. Yet, for many people, which includes yours truly, it is by far the toughest word to come out of their mouth.

People tend to say everything but a No. To me, the toughest thing to come out of my mouth is a No. I invite trouble so many times which could have been averted if I dare to say this two letter word. Extra work, several obligations, all come my way for one inability!

I feel its a virtue to be able to say a No. People say MBA teaches people to say a No, and somehow, it sure seems to be true. Atleast it gives you lots of opportunities to say a No, and it is up to you to learn from those and master the art of saying a No. Am trying to do that. This is what I call improving my no-how :P

Sometimes, simplest of the tasks seem the toughest and blurting out this simple word is one such task for me.

Bye Bye Bangalore...

Somehow, Blogger dsnt allow me to post a title today :( Anyway, its finally curtains down to my stay at Bangalore. Unexpected turn of events later, I was told an hour ago that I can leave anytime from then. Had been trying since 4 days to know when I could go and this came as a surprise, nevertheless an interesting one.

The last two months have been fabulous in Bangalore. Met many old friends, spent some quality time with them, went to a few good places, and ya, worked a bit :D Also got tht much touted corporate exposure. It has been a pleasant experience. At least the road to my career seems more clear now.

Bangalore has been a great venue. Over all I liked it, for not just friends, I got to spend some good time with my sister too. Bangalore to me, though, doesnt seem like a city I would like to settle in. One day, a friend of mine quoted, " Bangalore isnt a city you should go around in. In Bangalore, just choose a nice house, sit and enjoy the weather. If you go out, you wont enjoy it." That is true. With too much of traffic and congestion, the travel takes away the delight of going places.

High points of Bangalore:

• Friends
• Sister
• Amazing Work place
• Cool Lifestyle
• Radio City (I am almost in love with RJs Aviva and Vasanti! Desh, I got a call from Vasanti, by the way! :D)
• First pay packet :D
• Waiting For Lefty :D

Low Points:

• Traffic
• No proper trips
• Too pricey movies
• No Sivaji in Telugu :(

All in all, two months I would cherish...

For now, its Bye Bye Bangalore! :)

Legacy

The legend that we called life... DA-IICT...
Read more at: http://daiictians.blogspot.com/
Placement: http://placement.daiict.ac.in/
Synapse: http://synapse.daiict.ac.in/

Fight with Eight!

Am already a Random guy. Added to that, Sakshi tagged me to state Eight Random facts about me. So, I randomly sat down to jot down eight random things about me and ended up with a random mix of random things about me, which might have come into me randomly but have been inscribed in me so much that even when I think randomly these are the random things that strike me, for I already told you am so random... The previous statement had eight randoms :P Probably, that should end the tag :P But, being such a good and nice boy I am, I dont want to set a bad precedent for the successors who wud embark on this eventful journey of randomness and script a legacy.

Hence, here I state eight random things about me:

1. I am unhappy with my life. I cant figure out the exact reason, but the truth prevails nonetheless.


2. I like wearing clothes that dont match. A trouser that wouldnt go with the shirt makes a great combination, but ofcourse, I fear accusations of insanity too, and keep the mismatch to the minimum ;)


3. Am a die-hard Rajini fan... Seen his movie yesterday and am still in the hangover. Am going to watch it again today. Am going to watch it atleast four more times. He is the living legend of our times :D His movies, the ones people accuse of lack of logic, meaning and stuff, give me a mental orgasm! :P


4. I love spending time at home, lazing around, doing nothing :D I think thats the best way to spend a day, but alas, seldom do I get a chance to spend time like that.


5. I am a binge spender :P I either spend a lot or dont spend at all. I believe in getting the best when you have the money :D


6. I want to make a film on Einstein. period.


7. I feel jittery on everytime I fly, during takeoff and landing. I am scared that a wheel will fly off and I will either be dead or injured. I feel like I have won the world when I land or takeoff safely :P


8. I am a homebird. I miss my home a lot, and feel very bad whenever I have to leave home for college. :(

Now, to state eight random facts, eight random people:

• Steve James Nipps ... My Tag victim forever ...


• Shikha Tomar ... There wud b 80 random things she can say now :D ...


• Saraswati Mukkai ... Wud b fun and interesting to know! ...


• Abhishek Deshpande ... I wud b looking forward to this ...


• Diwakar Kaushik ... Random Things abt the Random Soul ...


• Prasoon Gupta ... Try answering tags ...


• Reva ... Do this in Tamizh if u want :D ...


• Malvika ... plz dont run away, answer this ...