New Year Resolutions
1. Donate blood atleast 3 times a year
2. Join an NGO and contribute 10 hours per week atleast for their cause.
3. Talk to wockhardt hospital or apollo and see if you can volunteer your services/time
4. more time with family
5. Get atleast one certification like Java or CISCO or Linux
6. Run 20 km every week
7. Get the Allianz francaise certification
8. Gym 3 times a week atleast

Points to Ponder

1. A picture is worth a thousand words. Stop verbalizing thoughts. Draw diagrams, doodle on a napkin, create hideous powerpoint slides, draw on cave walls with charcoal sticks if you have to - graphic is the way to go
2. Beware of dogma. Fight it relentlessly. Fight it by convincing actions. Don't fight dogma with dogma.
3. If you love Paul Coelho then your heart is in the right place! 
4. Trust not a man who does not benchpress, he is given to tricks strategies and stratagems. - adapted from Shakespeare
5. Process and innovation may sound orthogonal as objectives. But they aren't necessarily so. Innovative processes and processes for innovation are common. Process is a conduit....innovation is the destination. Ignore the balance sheet. That is a given, if the road and destination are clear.
6. If you are headed in the wrong direction stop and turn 180 degrees
7. The right time to stop doing the wrong thing is right now
8. Do not make people conform. Embrace eccentricities. We crave individuality and we then hire intelligent people and expect them to fall in line and lose their identities and individualistic perspectives. The ones who conform might have suppressed angst or might lose their identities and become plain. And plain is tasteless.
9. The human state is meant to make about 5 good friends and meet 1 or 2 kindred spirits in their lifetime. Anything else is an unrealistic expectation. All others are acquaintances.
10. Read Khalil Gibran, Omar Khayyam and Rumi - to experience joy.
11. Constantly guard against anger. It is a poison tree that eats you from within.

Our own  battles
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We are all warriors in our own right, fighting our own battles.
Some battles are worth fighting for; some are not worth the time or the effort.
Some battles carry a huge cost, the emotional cost.
Some battles seem to be never ending. Some battles end surprisingly quickly.
Some victories are witnessed and acknowledged and appreciated by those close to us.
Some victories are silent ones. The final act sounding the end of a battle could be something quaint like a mail or a phone call or handshake.
Some end badly with quite a gale of bitter memories and words spewing out back and forth; embittered souls.
Few rarely lead to blows; albeit those being the easiest to heal.
And then there are those battles which seem to end only to flare up. One would give anything to see the white flag.
All the while one wonders, 'should I have been doing something better than this. Life is too short to be spent worrying and fighting. Is it the human state to be in a constant state of flux'

French connection

Something interesting happened in train to Chennai today. Mom dad and I were travelling and a French lady 55 years old was looking a bit lost and seemed to be asking for directions. I offered to help her with directions and spoke in French. I know a bit. She was very thankful. She works for orphanages and and NGO based in Coorg and she is in Chennai to teach English to some slum children. Next week she is going to Dharamshala.

She was in Bangalore for 1 week and I helped her find her coach C1. Once I moved to my coach and the train moved away I was wondering if all was well with her and called on her mobile phone number which she had shared with me. But she was on wrong train and so had changed trains.

She had a tough time, not knowing the language but her spirit was good; she was smiling ; enjoying the experience.

Some coolies charged her a lot of money 100 Rs to go to the train platform; 100Rs to change to another train from platform 7 to platform 1; and then 100Rs in Chennai platform again; she was upset but was laughing
I have invited her over for dinner with mom and dad tomorrow evening

Would we ever do this; at 55 move to another country; look for impoverished areas there; and then help them
not knowing their language; suffer the corruption and then laugh and move on. This is human spirit -
to endure and persist.

I admire it and appreciate it.
That is my story.
P.S On a lighter note when she was boarding the train I mentioned the TGV (train de grande vitesse) capable of moving at 300km/hr in France. She rolled her eyes comparing it to Shatabdi train which move at a top speed of 100km/hr. It was funny to see her expression.

snake!

Yesterday Balaji, a colleague of mine and I met at the Krishna Temple on CMH road and 80 feet road intersection in Bangalore. We usually meet there around 8pm. Something interesting happened. There was a cobra snake that was coiled up in the shoe rack of the temple and it had its hood open. It was pretty intimidating to see the snake up close and personal at 4 feet away. A few well-meaning volunteers had gathered with tongs and wanted to put the snake inside a jute bag. I had learnt from watching Discovery Channel that this exercise is fraught with danger. Since the snake has the infra-red sensory pits it can thermal-image the handler outside the jute bag with a high degree of accuracy and one must be extremely careful of this. The volunteers had a plastic pipe into which they were planning to cajole the snake into. That might work only if it mellows down.

There is something about witnessing the hissing strike posture of a cobra that curdles the blood. One's primeval fears are materialized. One wants to run but the legs dont oblige. One is transfixed by the spectacle marks as the serpent sways. A mesmerizing toxic beauty. One is enchanted and transfixed. And when the head strikes one has scarcely a split-second to move. and should the strike land, one has 5 minutes of euphoric dizziness and agonizing helplessness. The neurotoxin shuts down the diaphragm so respiratory system grinds to a halt. Lack of oxygen to the brain and limbs makes one feel life ebbing away. The heart desperately compensates by beating at 200 beats per minute - more than 3 times its usual rate. And finally it gives up. The last 10 seconds one can only surmise the last thoughts as the brain accepts the inevitable fact - slowly sliding into a spiral of inky black oblivion.

dad's birthday

Tomorrow is my father's birthday. He turns 68. Am planning to get him a surprise gift - a PeterEngland or AllenSolly dress shirt 42 size white color which is his favorite. Will step out during lunch hour and purchase the shirt.

tick tock

Today I ran for the first time this new year on nike+. I did about 3 km in Bangalore Indira Nagar Defence colony in the morning. This was after I went to Malleswaram for my usual Tue, Thur Sat 6am guitar class. I plan to keep these 2 activities (running and guitar) going steady for this year. I wonder how I can squeeze in my Talwalkar's gym routine which is currently suffering. I used to go to the gym in the mornings at 6am but now that seems difficult with the guitar classes and running routine. I could go in the evenings if I head out of work at 5:30. Will try that today and see how that works out. If that works out well I might actually keep an hour for gym work-outs in the evenings. 6:30 to 7:30pm daily.

Time is running fast - tick tock!