Monday, July 07, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Wow its thalaivar's book on the front stands on landmark . One of their best sellers make it to that stand. It was not an impulsive decision to buy it, wanted to own it since i got to know that there is one such book on rajini.
Feels great to own it and even better when u read through the whole book grasping every inch in a single day.
But the height of ego boost happens when u spot mistakes in the book;)
On the book i liked the way it was narrated. Felt like a movie.Kind of alternating between 3 phases in rajini's life , his childhood, entry to movies and finally his present life. These moods alternate and keeps to tight to the seat. Believe me its the only other book i finished this fast other than Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code (excuse me if u took it as a comparison between them , just shows my interest in knowing more about THALAIVAR)
The best part of the book lies where the author hasnt godified Rajni. Shows him just like another guy brought up in a way child would be in his circumstances.She seems to have followed rajni thru his growth in maturity.
Think its a good bet to own
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Unreasonable Insecurity
I pass through this very intersection every morning with so much ease. Today, the pace is skewed. There is a sense of disarray as motorists try to push past each other through the traffic light. The light here always tests their agility because if you miss the green, you have to wait for another three minutes before it lets you go past again. Those three minutes become eternity for an otherwise time-insensitive nation on the move. Today, there is a sense of chaos here. People are honking, skirting each other and rushing past. I look out of my window to seek the reason. It is not difficult to find because it is lying strewn all over the place.
A tomato seller's cart has overturned. There are tomatoes everywhere and the rushing motorists are making pulp of it. The man is trying to get his cart back on its four rickety wheels and a few passersby are picking up what they can in an attempt to save him total loss. Though symbolic in the larger scheme of things, it is not a substantive gesture. His business for the day is over.
The way this man's economics works is very simple. There is a money lender who lends him money for just one day, at an interest rate of Rs 10 per day per Rs 100 lent. With the money, he wakes up at 4 am to go to the wholesale market for vegetables. He returns, pushing his cart a good five miles, and by 7 am when the locality wakes up, he is ready to sell his day's merchandise. By the end of the morning, some of it remains unsold. This, his wife sells by the afternoon and takes home the remainder, which becomes part of his meal. With the day's proceeds, he returns the interest to the money lender and goes back to the routine the next day.
If he does not sell for a day, his chain breaks. Where does he go from here? He goes back to the money lender, raises capital at an even more penal interest and gets back on his feet. This is not the only time that destiny has upset his tomato cart. This happens to him at least six times every year. Once he returned with a loaded cart of ripe tomatoes and it rained heavily for the next three days. No one came to the market and his stock rotted in front of his own eyes. Another time, instead of the weather, it was a political rally that snowballed into a confrontation between two rival groups and the locality closed down. And he is not alone in this game of extraneous factors that seize not only his business but also his life. He sees this happen to the "gol-gappa" seller, the peanut seller and the "vada pao" seller all the time. When their product does not sell, it just turns soggy.
Sometimes they eat some of it. But how much of that stuff can you eat by yourself? So, they just give away some and there is always that one time when they have to simply throw it away.
Away from the street-vendor selling perishable commodity with little or no life support system, the corporate world is an altogether different place. Here we have some of the most educated people in the country. We don the best garbs. We do not have to push carts; our carts push us. We have our salary, perquisites, bonuses, stock options, gratuities, pensions and our medical insurance and the group accident benefit schemes. Yet, all the while, we worry about our risks and think about our professional insecurity. We wonder, what would happen if the company shifted offices to another city? What would happen if the department closed down? What would happen if you were to take maternity leave and the temporary substitute delivered better work than you did? What would happen if the product line you are dealing with simply failed? In any of those eventualities, the worst that could happen would still be a lot less than having to see your cartful of tomatoes getting pulped under the screeching wheels of absolute strangers who have nothing personal against you.
All too often we exaggerate our risks. We keep justifying our professional concerns till they trap us in their vicious downward spiral. Devoid of education, sophisticated reasoning and any financial safety net, the man with the cart is often able to deal with life much better than many of us. Is it time to look out of the window, into the eyes of that man to ask him, where does he get it from?
In his simple stoicism, is probably, our lost resilience.
-----------Courtesy- A mail i received ----------------------------------
A tomato seller's cart has overturned. There are tomatoes everywhere and the rushing motorists are making pulp of it. The man is trying to get his cart back on its four rickety wheels and a few passersby are picking up what they can in an attempt to save him total loss. Though symbolic in the larger scheme of things, it is not a substantive gesture. His business for the day is over.
The way this man's economics works is very simple. There is a money lender who lends him money for just one day, at an interest rate of Rs 10 per day per Rs 100 lent. With the money, he wakes up at 4 am to go to the wholesale market for vegetables. He returns, pushing his cart a good five miles, and by 7 am when the locality wakes up, he is ready to sell his day's merchandise. By the end of the morning, some of it remains unsold. This, his wife sells by the afternoon and takes home the remainder, which becomes part of his meal. With the day's proceeds, he returns the interest to the money lender and goes back to the routine the next day.
If he does not sell for a day, his chain breaks. Where does he go from here? He goes back to the money lender, raises capital at an even more penal interest and gets back on his feet. This is not the only time that destiny has upset his tomato cart. This happens to him at least six times every year. Once he returned with a loaded cart of ripe tomatoes and it rained heavily for the next three days. No one came to the market and his stock rotted in front of his own eyes. Another time, instead of the weather, it was a political rally that snowballed into a confrontation between two rival groups and the locality closed down. And he is not alone in this game of extraneous factors that seize not only his business but also his life. He sees this happen to the "gol-gappa" seller, the peanut seller and the "vada pao" seller all the time. When their product does not sell, it just turns soggy.
Sometimes they eat some of it. But how much of that stuff can you eat by yourself? So, they just give away some and there is always that one time when they have to simply throw it away.
Away from the street-vendor selling perishable commodity with little or no life support system, the corporate world is an altogether different place. Here we have some of the most educated people in the country. We don the best garbs. We do not have to push carts; our carts push us. We have our salary, perquisites, bonuses, stock options, gratuities, pensions and our medical insurance and the group accident benefit schemes. Yet, all the while, we worry about our risks and think about our professional insecurity. We wonder, what would happen if the company shifted offices to another city? What would happen if the department closed down? What would happen if you were to take maternity leave and the temporary substitute delivered better work than you did? What would happen if the product line you are dealing with simply failed? In any of those eventualities, the worst that could happen would still be a lot less than having to see your cartful of tomatoes getting pulped under the screeching wheels of absolute strangers who have nothing personal against you.
All too often we exaggerate our risks. We keep justifying our professional concerns till they trap us in their vicious downward spiral. Devoid of education, sophisticated reasoning and any financial safety net, the man with the cart is often able to deal with life much better than many of us. Is it time to look out of the window, into the eyes of that man to ask him, where does he get it from?
In his simple stoicism, is probably, our lost resilience.
-----------Courtesy- A mail i received ----------------------------------
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
"IF ONLY"
Please stay patient, i know its longer than usual.
A grim voice said "You'll leave this world at 9 PM today" and then a thud, his back hurt like someone threw him on the bed. The impact woke him up. Phew it was only a dream felt Ian. But his back hurt and the voice he felt had got as close his ear. So what was it, a dream or reality? He took some time to recuperate from the shock. He could do everything but recollect what happened in his alleged dream. All he could recollect was the voice and intensity of the content which said he would die today.
He picked his coffee from his left hand and whoosh a thought just struck him like lightening, he would never pick his coffee with the left. Then he began to think he had done this just once before, and that was in the dream when he picked it in the left and spilt it on the newspaper and soiling the word TIMES in TIMES OF INDIA. So he looked at the newspaper and felt great that it was just a dream. But before he could realize his left arm was not even half as strong as his left he had spilt the coffee on the newspaper covering the TIMES part of "TIMES OF INDIA”. Now this got him thinking, "why am I not able to recollect all what I saw in the dream?" cuz that would help him clear the dilemma whether it was fact or fiction.
He began to realize that every event he saw in his so called cusp between dream and reality was happening alright, but in a different sequence. He saw his spectacle break, his handkerchief burn, slippers tear all in his dream. The incidents that were happening to him were already experienced and he was reliving them. He got the whole sequence till his cab crashed onto a median at 9 PM as told by the voice and he died. So the words he heard before he got up was true and it was a unique opportunity for him to know when he was gonna die. He just couldn’t believe what was happening to him. He was getting to know how and when he would die. He had another 4 hours to live before he was gonna die. It took him an hour more to come to terms with the terrible tragedy that was to befall on him. All through the hour like everyone else he abused the almighty for having him in this fix, cursed his luck and all unproductive things he could ill-afford. He always wanted to know the future, but when it presented itself before him he just couldn’t digest it. He then realized how lucky he was that he had got the time to face death with a smile . Set all things right before he could before he sinks into the earth. He had around 3 hours with him to do all the stuff he wanted to.He wanted to live on this earth like a dew drop that in its evanescent life stands up tall against the mighty SUN.
He picked his phone book and the 1st call was to his ex-wife. They had parted ways some years back cuz our man just couldn’t stay with one woman all his life. But ever since they decided to part ways, he wanted her back and just one factor that stood between the 2 of them was his ego. He just couldn’t dispense his ego or a sorry till the matters were irreparable. He thought to himself , If there is no soul, on what will the ego leverage on? A dead man can’t have an ego .He called her up and said “ I wanted to stay with you since the time I left you , but never had the strength in me to accept my mistake. “ The woman knew there was something wrong cuz in all the days she had him in her life, this was the last thing he would do , being sorry for what he did. He always had his way to justify his misconduct. Called his brother and told him he didn’t attend to him when he needed most, in the pursuit of power and position. He told him he didn’t have it in him to die without having this conveyed to him.
He felt a lot better and like lost a few pounds (a lighter hearts weighs less too). These were the relations he always knew he messed up! An hour left, he visited the music school next door to join the guitar he always wanted to learn . He smiled at himself that he didn’t wanna die thinking he never gave a shot at the instrument he wanted to learn like forever. The instructor asked him to be there after work at around the same time tomorrow. Immediately when the instructor said that , there was a cynical grin of Ian’s face. He went to his favorite restaurant for dinner. He knew it was pretty early dinner at 2030 hrs but he said to himself he didn’t wanna die hungry , he knew he was the best at find-the-irony-in-life one-liners. A shot of his favorite tequila to get him feel the impact of death lesser.
When he finished food, he just had a peek at the day he had lived since he realized it was his ultimate day, in more ways than one. He felt ecstatic and thought IF-ONLY he had lived the life this way , everyday. Just then he saw an old lady cross the street pretty dangerously, he lent her help to reach the other bank . He realized he could have died helping her, but the confidence in his face indicated that this is not the way his life was to end, so no harm helping her. These things gave him a good ego-boost. He also felt happy smiling at death, cuz to him that was one of the best opportunities he had to die brave. This day has been the best to him in a lot of ways- Spoke to his dear ones, helped the needy, enrolled to sth he wanted to since childhood . He felt a fresh soul.
Now he didn’t have any qualms accepting the eventuality. He hired a taxi. The driver looked back and he was exactly the same guy he saw in his semi-reality(he finally coined a term for his experience) There was this grin on his face and knew what was to follow. He even felt bad the driver was to die in athis scheme of things. Though he wanted to tell him , he knew it was a lot more of a shock than the driver could handle. He just closed his eyes and smiled wide when the exact place of accident arrived and felt a force pull him away from earth and the smile grew wider.
A voice said “Your place has arrived ,Sir . Looks like you are very happy , the wide grin says it all.” Ian was shocked to be alive. They had well passed that place. He paid the driver with disbelief. He reached his place to find his brother there. He had dropped by to find if everything was ok. He was ecstatic to have seen his old brother back. After things kind of got settled down, he was just going through some mags when he found someone write on how stress saps up ones energy and leaves him groping in the dark between whats true and whats not. Well this was when he began to realize that all what happened today was the peripheral effects of stress. He felt like one big fool. But soon recollected how good the whole day had been cuz he lived it like his last day on earth.He seemed to have got his loved ones back and enjoyed every second he lived today.
May be this one day had taught him more about life than the entire life he lived.
A grim voice said "You'll leave this world at 9 PM today" and then a thud, his back hurt like someone threw him on the bed. The impact woke him up. Phew it was only a dream felt Ian. But his back hurt and the voice he felt had got as close his ear. So what was it, a dream or reality? He took some time to recuperate from the shock. He could do everything but recollect what happened in his alleged dream. All he could recollect was the voice and intensity of the content which said he would die today.
He picked his coffee from his left hand and whoosh a thought just struck him like lightening, he would never pick his coffee with the left. Then he began to think he had done this just once before, and that was in the dream when he picked it in the left and spilt it on the newspaper and soiling the word TIMES in TIMES OF INDIA. So he looked at the newspaper and felt great that it was just a dream. But before he could realize his left arm was not even half as strong as his left he had spilt the coffee on the newspaper covering the TIMES part of "TIMES OF INDIA”. Now this got him thinking, "why am I not able to recollect all what I saw in the dream?" cuz that would help him clear the dilemma whether it was fact or fiction.
He began to realize that every event he saw in his so called cusp between dream and reality was happening alright, but in a different sequence. He saw his spectacle break, his handkerchief burn, slippers tear all in his dream. The incidents that were happening to him were already experienced and he was reliving them. He got the whole sequence till his cab crashed onto a median at 9 PM as told by the voice and he died. So the words he heard before he got up was true and it was a unique opportunity for him to know when he was gonna die. He just couldn’t believe what was happening to him. He was getting to know how and when he would die. He had another 4 hours to live before he was gonna die. It took him an hour more to come to terms with the terrible tragedy that was to befall on him. All through the hour like everyone else he abused the almighty for having him in this fix, cursed his luck and all unproductive things he could ill-afford. He always wanted to know the future, but when it presented itself before him he just couldn’t digest it. He then realized how lucky he was that he had got the time to face death with a smile . Set all things right before he could before he sinks into the earth. He had around 3 hours with him to do all the stuff he wanted to.He wanted to live on this earth like a dew drop that in its evanescent life stands up tall against the mighty SUN.
He picked his phone book and the 1st call was to his ex-wife. They had parted ways some years back cuz our man just couldn’t stay with one woman all his life. But ever since they decided to part ways, he wanted her back and just one factor that stood between the 2 of them was his ego. He just couldn’t dispense his ego or a sorry till the matters were irreparable. He thought to himself , If there is no soul, on what will the ego leverage on? A dead man can’t have an ego .He called her up and said “ I wanted to stay with you since the time I left you , but never had the strength in me to accept my mistake. “ The woman knew there was something wrong cuz in all the days she had him in her life, this was the last thing he would do , being sorry for what he did. He always had his way to justify his misconduct. Called his brother and told him he didn’t attend to him when he needed most, in the pursuit of power and position. He told him he didn’t have it in him to die without having this conveyed to him.
He felt a lot better and like lost a few pounds (a lighter hearts weighs less too). These were the relations he always knew he messed up! An hour left, he visited the music school next door to join the guitar he always wanted to learn . He smiled at himself that he didn’t wanna die thinking he never gave a shot at the instrument he wanted to learn like forever. The instructor asked him to be there after work at around the same time tomorrow. Immediately when the instructor said that , there was a cynical grin of Ian’s face. He went to his favorite restaurant for dinner. He knew it was pretty early dinner at 2030 hrs but he said to himself he didn’t wanna die hungry , he knew he was the best at find-the-irony-in-life one-liners. A shot of his favorite tequila to get him feel the impact of death lesser.
When he finished food, he just had a peek at the day he had lived since he realized it was his ultimate day, in more ways than one. He felt ecstatic and thought IF-ONLY he had lived the life this way , everyday. Just then he saw an old lady cross the street pretty dangerously, he lent her help to reach the other bank . He realized he could have died helping her, but the confidence in his face indicated that this is not the way his life was to end, so no harm helping her. These things gave him a good ego-boost. He also felt happy smiling at death, cuz to him that was one of the best opportunities he had to die brave. This day has been the best to him in a lot of ways- Spoke to his dear ones, helped the needy, enrolled to sth he wanted to since childhood . He felt a fresh soul.
Now he didn’t have any qualms accepting the eventuality. He hired a taxi. The driver looked back and he was exactly the same guy he saw in his semi-reality(he finally coined a term for his experience) There was this grin on his face and knew what was to follow. He even felt bad the driver was to die in athis scheme of things. Though he wanted to tell him , he knew it was a lot more of a shock than the driver could handle. He just closed his eyes and smiled wide when the exact place of accident arrived and felt a force pull him away from earth and the smile grew wider.
A voice said “Your place has arrived ,Sir . Looks like you are very happy , the wide grin says it all.” Ian was shocked to be alive. They had well passed that place. He paid the driver with disbelief. He reached his place to find his brother there. He had dropped by to find if everything was ok. He was ecstatic to have seen his old brother back. After things kind of got settled down, he was just going through some mags when he found someone write on how stress saps up ones energy and leaves him groping in the dark between whats true and whats not. Well this was when he began to realize that all what happened today was the peripheral effects of stress. He felt like one big fool. But soon recollected how good the whole day had been cuz he lived it like his last day on earth.He seemed to have got his loved ones back and enjoyed every second he lived today.
May be this one day had taught him more about life than the entire life he lived.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)