Stray Thoughts

There’s dust on the keyboard,
Some more on the books,
A wallet lying open nearby,
With bits and pieces around.

The walls are scattered with photographs,
Of near and dear ones;
And some more moments of cheer you'd find,
In the gallery of the handheld device.

The guitar needs a tuning,
A couple of strings too, perhaps,
It's clear they need a bit more of music,
Some fun and more laughter to sync.

You wonder where the days have gone,
What you’ve done with your time,
Mornings come and evenings go,
You seem to be stuck alone somewhere in time.

You see facades around,
And not just on the buildings,
Masters, it seems, all are,
At masking their true emotions.

Everyone you see is happy,
Or trying hard to be,
Are there no kindred spirits,
No one riding the same boat as you?

You wonder then, if you are truly happy,
Or trying hard to be,
Are you trying hard to get it all,
But missing the real you?

Time

The sands of time, o how they trickle by,

Sometimes quickly you say, sometimes a tad prolonged,

I wonder what tales these sands can say,

Some sombre and then some so grand.

They've seen the times of emperors and great leaders of yore,

They've been at the battles fought in the land,

A silent spectator as history enfolded,

Some sombre and some so grand.

Adjusted they did to the changes around,

Some from the water bed to land,

Some others from boulders worn down by time,

Until they learnt to be one with the times, be they sombre or grand.

And yet these sand lie on your feet,

Trodden by all around,

You realise it's these sand that has stood the time,

While you're just a part of its time!

Holding On

She could resist it no more,

Her eyes were too heavy,

They longed to leave the present world.

The pull was too strong,

A beginning awaited on the other side,

She was reluctant to leave the story she had this side.

It wasn't over yet, 

She couldn't leave yet, 

This couldn't be how it ended, 

She needed to know the end.

It was a losing battle, she knew it as much,

Wasn't long before she gave in, and was pulled into dreamland,

But not before tucking her reader in her arms,

Trying, as though, to carry her story beyond!

Perspective

Remember that conversation,
Of which you weren't really a part,

Cos twas between some others,

But you had no choice but to hear along?

Twas one such overheard conversation,

Between two pals who journeyed along,

A couple of seats away from me,

On a day not so long.

They were both young and exuberant,

Wanting to take the world by storm,

Both of them had high aspirations,

And dreams to have it all.

They spoke of their plans for the future,

Of grandeur days ahead,

The way their career would progress,

And mansions they would build.

Even as they conversed amongst them, 

I wondered how they'd both,

Face the challenges thrown their way,

How they'd play the game of life set ahead for them.

I glanced out the window deep in my thoughts,

And saw below the fluffy clouds, 

Beyond the rays that caught my eye,

The mansions and dotted landscape of flats,

All look like Legos scattered from the sky!

Listen

Are you a good listener, the preacher asked on a Sunday,

Do you hear what is being said and understand?
Do you try to piece together the context with the words,
Catch the nuances of what is left unsaid?

Or are you pretending to listen,
While coining a response in your head,
Rephrasing it a million times in your mind,
Wanting your response to sound the best?

Or are you even hearing, what is being said,
Listening? Forget it, is not even a part of your disposition,
You’re busy having conversations, with the noises in your head,
Leaving little ear for listening in to conversations.

Lift your head sometimes, he said,
Listen in to tales and connotations,
You might be surprised at times,
When you take time to be still, be open and listen!

My portion of the sky!

Don’t you feel you’re living in a concrete jungle,

With brick and mortar rising tall and high?

Often seeming to have a life of their own,

Springing up overnight where they weren’t before?

Sometimes in shapes resembling the next,

Oft one floor higher than the rest.

You hear the motor chugging, the drilling sounds echo,

The droning noise carries itself round and round,

Filling the air with a presence you just can’t ignore.

Don’t you feel your heart beat, in time to this tone?

There’s always work going on, something new being built,

You bet that’s another structure taller than the rest.

Are we any different from our predecessors?

Have we learnt any lessons from our ancestors?

Just beyond these concrete structures, the tombs you can see,

Of seven kings who reigned this land not that long ago,

Their only wish seemed, to be, bigger than the former,

And so, they built their own tombs magnificent and taller, than the rest.

Is it a wonder then, that my heart should sing,

When I see an empty plot right next to my inn?

It might be in line, waiting to spring,

A structure more grandiose than the ones next to it,

Till then I get more than the concrete jungle around,

Until then I have open access to a portion of the sky!

The Gift

It was a gift, a birthday gift,

One she'd asked her mother for,

Because her friends around where she lived,

Looked happy riding in one around. 

With smiles on their faces, light in their eyes,

They made it look easy to pedal back and forth, 

The wind in the hair and bells in the air,

Seemed to make them float around on those wheels.

Now she'd got one too, she was overjoyed,

The thrill of the ride would soon be hers too,

So thinking she took her bike to the streets,

With more enthusiasm than skill she possessed.

You guess what happened, I'll leave that to you,

In short, there was a lot of crying and bruised skin too,

Suddenly the much anticipated thing, 

Seemed to cause her more pain than the joy she'd presumed.

Later in the day, she wondered what to do,

Was it worth the pain to learn something new?

She sure wanted to feel the wind in her hair, 

She decided to persevere till she could smile through her fears!

The Phantom Friend

He had just a couple of days, 

To hop and skip and see the world,

With tiny wings he flew around,

Till he was sure he'd seen it all.

He wasn't sure, but thought he had,

Someone follow him close by,

Keeping up with his each step,

Silently, all day by.

Tried he did to peer and see,

Who it was that followed him,

Friend or foe he did not know,

Or was it just a flutterby?

Tired at last he called a halt,

Deciding to rest his tiny wings, 

And when he perched up on the wall,

He met his shadow, his phantom friend!

When life calls for Vitamin Sea

In the giant rush of all the madness that encompasses your life and the time that everyone wants a slice of you, there is always some place which is your refuge. That place which only our few closest ones know of. It could be the quiet corner in the library amidst those books which are not that frequented. It could have been that comfortable branch of the age old tree whose canopy leaves told you stories of days gone by while sunlight played hide and seek with you. If you were lucky, you’d have had a patch of a river bank where you could sit and watch the ripples in the water and practice your stone throwing skills, seeing how far you could skip those stones before they sunk.

If you were from the mountains, you’d have your own private view point where you’d have had a vantage position over the land and felt like the lord of all beneath and marveled at the various shades of the sky as the sun makes its journey in the sky. I’ve been fortunate to have had a glimpse of the solitude that each of these have had to offer. I’m partial to none of these, although, I do have fond memories of each. However, I for some reason, have always been drawn to the beach, the place as someone described where the land meets the sea and the sea meets the sky.

Being brought up in a coastal town could explain why the sea holds such a fascination. You might wonder, what’s so special? It’s just a mass of swirling water after all, washing ashore and then being pulled back like a well-worn routine, with grains of sand spread across miles of land which have the annoying habit of sneaking into your shoes and making it difficult to walk. The smell ain’t nothing much to write home about either.

I’d like to think that like mature wine or aged scotch, seaside is a solace that grows on you. You’d need to pick your time of visit with care as choosing to be in the beach in the middle of the day with the sun burning down on you or visiting late at night when the tide is high could be a bane. I’d stick with dawn or dusk.

The distinctive tangy smell of the sea is the first thing that greets you from over half a mile away before you reach the seashore or hear the sound of the waves crashing on the shore. Once you are closer, the grains of sand weave through your toes, greeting you like friends who’re glad to see you back. Some experiences are best enjoyed barefoot, and from this point forward would definitely be one among them.

The point where the waves come and lap at your feet like they are eager to play, but not sure if you can keep up with them, is one of my favorite spots to warm up. As I walk along the waterfront with the waves gently slapping at my feet, I’ve often rolled on my worries and the waves have at times lapped them right off me! I’ve enjoyed taking a turn amidst the waves and letting it lift me up along with the waves. They come rushing to meet you, like a long lost friend and give you a hug that could lift you off your feet.

Even if one were to forgo getting wet or were not in the mood to play in the waves, you could just perch yourself somewhere in the shore and let the wind rip through your hair and let the voice of the sea speak to you. As author Kate Chopin once said, ‘The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace’. One could sit and enjoy one of the biggest screens of creation, all spread out, just for them and all without a cost! You watch the distant ships charting their course on unknown land and see a couple of fishermen ready their boats to set sail folding in their nets to catch their fare. In the meanwhile, the canvas of the sky change hues of glorious shades of blue mixed with red and orange which shimmer across the surface of the water with the Sun playing peekaboo between the clouds. Often in those quiet times, when I’ve enjoyed the show, like it’s been put up solely for me, I’ve felt most at peace with myself.

The sea often makes us feel really insignificant by its vastness and allows us to garner a fresh perspective on things which rue our life. Like writer Sarah Kay said, “there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away." It kind of gives the forbearance to give another chance to solve whatever it was that was clouding our day. If you were to give it some more time, you’d find the rhythm in the waves and they could help you set a tune alight in your heart as well.  

And as I’ve often gathered up my things and bid adieu to the sea, I’ve felt the sound of waves, the smell of the sea and the whistle of the wind, call out to me, asking me to not be a stranger and come visit again. The memories of a visit to the beach linger longer in our minds than the footprints do in the sand. 

Random pickings of a sleepy mind

You’ve been thinking of the perfect way to start a conversation or have been struggling with a quick comeback to something your friend or colleague had said or it’s just that you wanted a perfect opening to the next blog or article you wanted to write and all this eluded your grasp at that particular time no matter how hard you tried.

Now let’s fast forward to the time when you hit your head on the pillow and are ready to call it a night. Just when you’ve closed your eyes and have gone through what’s happened during the day and are almost drifting off to sleepy land the unimaginable happens. The answer to your conversation starter, smart comeback or perfect opening creep up on you.

And without a thought as to why it’s coming in now you go on to place your mind at that thoughts disposal, weaving lines and words into beautiful order, so much so that it kind of feels like it is running into a beautiful commentary. You always wonder at some point as to how articulate you are and feel proud that you could produce a work like this, forgetting that it is just a work of fiction, and in more ways than one.

There have been days, or rather nights to be precise, where I have had deep arguments and conversations with people who I’ve wanted to give a piece of my mind or written a beautiful piece in those minutes when I was just slipping into dream land and then to be lost forever when I wake up the next day.

I sometimes wonder if these would resurface again and if the logic and points I had raised in my thoughts during those moments would come to my aide if I were in a similar situation some time later. But I’m never sure how that works or if once the thoughts are formed they are lost somewhere in the echelons of the mind buried within other data never to see the light of day or pen again.

Talking of pens, I’ve often thought of keeping a pen and paper at my bedside table to help jot down the points, but hey I’m too lazy to wake and put those thoughts to paper. Who knows when I wake up mayhap I lose the plot all together. So I’ll just stick on to enjoy that moment when I can and not sweat too much about how I could use it for my benefit. 

Words of wonder...

I’ve always been fascinated by words and the picture they are able to create when strung in a particular order. Rudyard Kipling referred to words as the most powerful drug used by mankind. Ever since I was able to string together the alphabets to form words and then to join them and form sentences, it was always a thrill to unravel a new world or see the same one through the eyes of different authors. I’ve travelled the length and breadth of some places thanks to the picture the words have painted.

Tom Sawyer always brings to my mind a picture of a small naughty boy with a pail of whitewash in hand and paintbrush in the other, slowly moving on to how he eventually makes dimes out of his task. I’ve almost felt the breath of the Swiss Alps and tasted goat’s milk in Heidi through the description of the author. I’ve sailed the whale ship Pequod along with Ishmael and almost felt the terror Captain Ahab put us through to get his personal vendetta against Moby Dick. Like Matilda I went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad, went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and travelled India with Rudyard Kipling. I travelled all over the world while sitting in my little room at home. There are many a times I’ve felt suspense and thrill and not put the book down till I got to the end of a Famous Five, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys or The Secret Seven as if I was almost helping them solve the mystery myself.

I’m sure there are a lot of books which have been just narratives of things as they were or mere explanations of things as they should be. However, nothing brought alive the war and its consequences as ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ by Anne Frank or ‘The Book Thief’ by Markus Zusak or ‘Désirée’ by Annemarie Selinko. The characters tell a story and the authors have weaved the tales around how the war was affecting the lives of people like no other history book I had read when in school. Although I guess, it might have been a task getting a bunch of kids to read heavy literature when reading curriculum books itself was considered a chore!

There are many a evenings when with my head stacked with pillows and feet tucked in my favourite blanket, with my mother’s incessant nagging in the background that I would one day spoil my eyes, I’ve peeked along with Alice in Wonderland or slept off to the tales of talking animals by Enid Blyton or relived the life of Black Beauty. I’ve dreamt of mythical beings and the magic of the land of Narnia as C. S. Lewis painted it for us and have joined in the movement with the inmates of George Orwell’s The Animal Farm. These stories left open doors to multiple interpretations with my mind being the only barrier to how far I could stretch the boundaries.

Food was often the victim of abandonment and so were academics and friends as I was engrossed in the lives that I was unveiling through the author’s eyes. Times have changed. Different genres of literature have held me captivated at various stages of interest. The more I read, the more I want to continue reading and explore. I could be lost in the beauty of a sunset as seen on a beach or be enthralled by the beauty of nature as seen from the top of a mountain. However, even when my eyes are not reading the printed letters, I find myself writing notes in my mind to go along with the picture to capture the essence of the moment. That is what adds flavour to the memory when I pick it out of my memoirs someday to reminisce. Like Helen Keller said, Literature is my Utopia!

Forever young

The secret recipe for being young is still at large. I’m sure cosmetologists and estheticians across the world are trying to figure out a magic formula that would help the human race be young for long. While the brilliant minds are still at work to develop this magic drug, I had a stimulating experience which kind of opened up my mind to looking beyond the physical and focus on being young at heart.

I was back in a college campus when an inter-collegiate event was on, giving company to my spouse or just wanting to see him work in his environment. The atmosphere in this campus was filled with energy, enthusiasm, high levels of emotions with each emotion being felt so strongly like there is no tomorrow. Yet, these students, once they graduate out of the college portals and embroil themselves with work, create their own definitions of success, get too indulged in their lives goals that they don’t realize when slowly life’s experiences turn them old and jaded. That is when they reminiscence of old days and the way things were back when they were in college.

Professors, now they are another cup of tea! And these are the genre of people who continue to stay young. I tell you why. Most of them stay in the campus, watch batches of students come in and watch them move on as young adults ready to take on the world. Since the energy levels in a campus is contagious, it means that some of all the mad energy is going to get passed on to them too. That’s not just it, they need to stay a step ahead of their students and so they learn some of their little tricks too!

Professors at most times need to converse, advice, cajole the students at certain tasks and the best results are got when they do that in the same wavelength as the student and not just as a higher up. This is an electrifying combination. The mind is constantly stimulated to process new information, along with the continuous young energy and I guess that’s the reason, most of the popular Professors are still young, atleast at heart. It’s another matter that most of the student antics might have given most of them premature greying or even go bald! Talk to any ‘popular’ professors and you’ll get what I’m trying to talk about.  

We were just discussing on the pros and cons of being a lecturer on our way back home. Would teaching of any kind have the same effect? We were not able to conclude emphatically, but both of us did feel that this strange bond between students and professors might be limited to education above a certain level. Does this make me want to take up teaching? Heck no! But I think I’ll be back for a dip from that fountain some time!  

All work and no play...

Work-life balance? What’s that? At one level it seems almost absurd to pose the question when work is so hard to come by. Whatever the government

may say about green shoots of recovery, the reality is jobs are scarce. You know that for sure when you’re told the biggest recruiters at IIT Delhi this year were Jalandhar’s Lovely Professional University, started by a mithai-magnate (it picked up 21 graduates) and ICFAI Institute of Science and Technology, (which recruited 17), not fancy names like Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse.

If things are so bad for kids who’ve been through one of the toughest selection processes in the country and who, till yesterday, were spoilt for choice, imagine how much worse it must be for others hoping to start their careers. And for many already in the workforce who are desperately hanging on to their jobs for want of alternatives. In such a scenario, where not only are jobs scarce, but unlike in the US, there is no safety net whatsoever, work ought to be prized above all else.

So is it strange, even plain stupid, to write a Sunday column on work-life balance? What’s that, many of today’s youngsters with 24 by 7 jobs might ask. Some quaint idea? What’s life if you don’t have work? The counter, what’s work if you don’t have a life somehow never seems to get posed at all.

And so for the generation that’s just started work in the midst of what is arguably the severest downturn the world has witnessed since the Great Depression and for those in sectors hard hit by the slowdown, life is only work, work, and more work. If you’re lucky enough to have a job, you’d better put your nose to the grindstone and slog; from dawn to dusk and possibly till later too. Remember Andy Grove’s, ‘Only the paranoid survive’? Well, barring the public sector, that seems to be the motto in the private sector the world over.

Let me qualify that. The country’s second largest private sector bank, HDFC Bank, has once again shown it is different. The bank has reportedly told its employees it doesn’t want them to spend too much time in office. All employees have been told to shut down their computers two hours after the close of banking and not work much beyond ‘normal’ (10am – 4pm) working hours.

It’s asked them to ‘Go get a life’, says a report in The Financial Chronicle. And suiting action to words, the bank’s managing director, Aditya Puri, sets an example by leaving office at 5.30 pm sharp. Sadly, organisations like HDFC Bank are rare. In most organisations, performance is measured, not by the quantum and quality of output, but by the number of hours spent in office. Never mind whether it is spent productively or not (usually the latter)! Barring the odd day, there is usually no reason why a normal work load cannot be completed in a 8-10 hour working day, yet for most the workday stretches interminably.

Even more unfortunate is the practice (actively encouraged by bosses) of hanging around in office till the boss leaves. This is what makes HDFC Bank a trendsetter of sorts. Not only does it tell its employees to vamoose once their work is done but their boss does likewise. Delhi Metro legendary chief E Sreedharan is another boss who doesn’t believe in his staff ‘hanging’ around. He seldom stays late in office and does not encourage his staff to do so either. Yet Delhi Metro has, time and again, beaten the deadline.

To be sure Delhi Metro is a public sector undertaking (with a private sector work ethos!) But make no mistake! HDFC Bank is not setting it-self up as a sucker when it tells its employees to go home, spend time with family and friends, have a blast, whatever, even as employees at competitor banks ‘work’ their fingers to their bone. It knows all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Employees cannot be productive if they are cooped up in office all day.

‘Eureka’ moments seldom come while sitting at a desk. In creative jobs, in particular, and these days almost all work is creative, it is important to re-charge your batteries and that cannot happen in the confines of an office. Companies and managements that recognise that more (hours in office) means less quality output and strive to ensure their employees have a work-life balance are the winners.

(Source: Economic Times)

Thicker than blood

Someone quite rightly said that you don’t get to choose your relatives but then you do get to choose your friends.. I guess that God just let us choose the best! I’m not sure how many have been lucky with friends but I should say that I am one fortunate person who has been surrounded by so many loved ones at times when I needed them most that today I feel I can easily attribute a lot of what I am to them..

There are times when you feel like you should be left alone and you are surrounded by ‘them’ and they don’t let you to sit and think, you just wish that they’d just all disappear so that you could sit in corner and lick your wounds in private, but then on a later day you realise that your friends had actually tried to take your mind away from the problem, had tried to fill your thoughts with a little bit of sunshine so that they could see the smile back up on your face..

There are times when you’ve just wanted to talk and felt that the world was not treating you fairly. You just needed to tell someone that ‘It is not just fair!’ as though you’d just discovered the secret of living and then you dial the number of an old friend and pour it all out.

I’m glad there are friends, God knows how dreary life would have been without them.. So let’s toast a drink to them!! Cheers Amigos!

The 'true' stroy of Valentines Day

I just got this hilarious forward from Joe and I thought it ought to be shared...

In spite of what you have been told by everyone, especially the propagandist English media, the truth is that Valentine's Day originated hundreds of years ago, in India, and to top it all, in Narendrabhai's Gujarat!

It is a well known fact that Gujarati men, specially the Patels, (used to?) mistreat and disrespect their wives. One fine day – it happened to be the 14th day of February – one brave Mrs. Patel, having had enough of "torture" from her husband, finally chose to rebel against the system and thrashed her husband up with a velan, the rolling pin that is used to make chapattis. Yes, the same velan with which she made chapattis for him. Only, this time, instead of the dough, it was the husband who was flattened.

This was a momentous occasion for all Gujarati women and the revolt soon spread like wild fire, with thousands of housewives beating up their husbands with the velan. It was a watershed event in the history of love.

Soon, the "chapatti-ed" husbands from Anand to Amdavad, and all of the Patel men-folk, quickly learnt that their women armed with velans were truly a force, and started behaving more respectfully with their wives.

Thereafter, to commemorate that eventful day, on 14th February every year, the womenfolk of Gujarat would beat up their husbands with the velan and the men had to display the supreme joy of submitting to the will of the women they loved.

February 14^th became – as it remains even today – too much of an ordeal for the men and the most awaited day for the women. The wise among the men decided to use Gandhigiri in true Gujarati style to lose the battle and win the war. Soon the men started making offerings of flowers and sweets and gifts to please their 'patni devi's and bought their mercy at a price. And thus began the tradition of velan time.

As Gujarat fell under the influence of Western culture, and the Patels began to settle from Durban to Trinidad, the ritual and the celebrations (or the ordeal?) soon spread through out the British commonwealth, and then to the western countries that had trade relations with the colonies.

In course of time, velan time, got anglicized to 'Velantine' and then to 'Valentine'. As you know, today it is celebrated world over as Valentine's Day, and as people who are proud of 'Indian culture', it is imperative that we celebrate it in the original Indian way, and not in the corrupt westernized and commercial way. 

Back again!

Well.. I wouldn’t describe myself to be a prolific writer and somebody who has the creative juices flowing out through their hands. I guess I am just happy when left by myself to do what I feel like.. but then when I do 

need an output for my vent up thoughts, I do pick up a pen and jot em’ down in my 

diary... 

I’ve been one to keep a diary for years now. Not as somebody who chronicles each day of her life, but on some days when I feel I want to share my thoughts with someone.

It has been not a very difficult transformation to make now that everything has gone ‘online’. You work from remote areas and are connected ‘online’. Your friends who once sat in the very same bench with you in college and canteen and library and now in different parts of the earth are in touch only because they are ‘online’. You network for your work ‘online’ and nowadays there have been more and more instances of people finding their life patners also ‘online’. So I just thought it might be time to just make that move and make my diary an ‘online blog’ too!

With this in mind I’m just making the resolve that I would write in my nomadic and wandering thoughts to paper more often now..

Set your Priorities right

A professor stood before his Philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. "The golf balls are the important things - your God, family, your children, your health, your friends, and your favorite passions - things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

"The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car. "The sand is everything else--the small stuff. "If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.

"The same goes for life. "If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. "Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. "Take time to get medical checkups. "Take your partner out to dinner. "Play another 18. "There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. "Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. "Set your priorities. "The rest is just sand."

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. "It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a cup of coffee with a friend."

The man who did not have an email account

A Jobless man applied for the position of 'office boy' at Microsoft. The HR manager interviewed him then watched him cleaning the floor as a test.'You are employed' he said. Give me your e-mail address and I'll send you the application to fill in, as well as date when you may start.

The man replied 'But I don't have a computer, neither an email'. 'I'm sorry', said the HR manager. If you don't have an email, that means you do not exist. And who doesn't exist, cannot have the job.'

The man left with no hope at all. He didn't know what to do, with only $10 in his pocket. He then decided to go to the supermarket and buy a 10Kg tomato crate. He then sold the tomatoes in a door to door round. In less than two hours, he succeeded to double his capital. He repeated the operation three times, and returned home with $60.

The man realized that he can survive by this way, and started to go everyday earlier, and return late. Thus, his money doubled or tripled everyday. Shortly, he bought a cart, then a truck, and then he had his own fleet of delivery vehicles.

5 years later, the man is one of the biggest food retailers in the US ... He started to plan his family's future, and decided to have a life insurance. He called an insurance broker, and chose a protection plan. When the conversation was concluded the broker asked him his email. The man replied,'I don't have an email.' The broker answered curiously, 'You don't have an email, and yet have succeeded to build an empire. Can you imagine what you could have been if you had an e mail?!!'

The man thought for a while and replied, 'Yes, I'd be an office boy at Microsoft!'

Moral of the story

Moral 1 Internet is not the solution to your life.

Moral 2 If you don't have Internet, and work hard, you can be a millionaire.

- Source: Mail forward. Origin unknown

There is no time like ‘Now’

One day a Maths teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name. Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down. It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers.

That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual.

On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. 'Really?' she heard whispered. 'I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!' and, 'I didn't know others liked me so much,' were most of the comments.

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on.

Several years later, one of the students was killed in 'Kargil' war and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had never attended Funeral of a serviceman before. He looked so handsome, so mature.

The place was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk. The teacher was the last one to bless.

As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her. 'Were you Sanjay's math teacher?' he asked. She nodded: 'yes.' Then he said: 'Sanjay talked about you a lot.'

After the funeral, most of Sanjay's former classmates were there. Sanjay's mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher. 'We want to show you something,' his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket 'They found this on Sanjay when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it.'

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Sanjay's classmates had said about him.

'Thank you so much for doing that,' Sanjay's mother said. 'As you can see, Sanjay treasured it.'

All of Sanjay's former classmates started to gather around. Arjun smiled rather sheepishly and said, 'I still have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home.'
Prithwiraj's wife said, ' Prithwiraj asked me to put his in our wedding album.'

'I have mine too,' Rashmi said. 'It's in my diary'. Then Deepali, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. 'I carry this with me at all times,' Deepali said and without batting an eyelash, she continued: 'I think we all saved our lists'

That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Sanjay and for all his friends who would never see him again.

The density of people in society is so thick that we forget that life will end one day. And we don't know when that one day will be. So please, tell the people you care for, that they are special and important. Tell them, before it is too late.

- Source: Mail forward. Origin unknown

'Short' hand!

Ever seen a steno sit and take down notes that the boss goes on dictating with the pencil on a notepad moving swiftly. Moving to a closer range you’d see that the notes that she has made are hardly comprehensible and make no sense to you as they look as merely curves drawn in many shapes. Before you jump to any conclusions about the steno playing up with her job let me tell you that she’s actually using stenography popularly called as ‘shorthand’.

Stenography, or often called shorthand, is any writing system that uses symbols or shortcuts that can be made to represent letters or the alphabet, words or phrases. (Stenography is from the Greek words meaning “narrow writing”). The purpose of Shorthand is to be able to write approximately as fast as someone speaks, in order to take down every thing that is said.Systems of shorthand were in use in the ancient world.

Beginning in 63 BC the speeches of the Roman orator Cicero were taken down in shorthand by his secretary. Marcus Tullius Tiro. The Tironian system was introduced into Roman schools and was used for centuries in the early Christian Church.Modern shorthand systems originated and developed in England. Timothy Bright introduced the first system in his book ‘Characterie: An Arte of Shorte, Swifte, and Secrete Writing by Character.’

Thirteen more such systems are known to have been introduced over the next 50 years. The early methods were called orthographic, or alphabetic, because they followed normal spelling. They did, however omit silent letters. The first teacher to make a break with the orthographic system was Philip Gibbs in 1736. His method was phonetic, based on distinguishing between long and short vowels. The two most widely used shorthand systems are phonetic: Pitman and Gregg.

Isaac Pitman published his ‘Stenographic Sound Hand’ in 1837. He classified all the sounds in English and arranged his method of writing accordingly. Pitman characters have simple geometric forms, and the curves are part of a true circle. Some letters are written with a light stroke, some with a heavy (shaded) stroke. The light and shaded strokes of the same form usually represent closely related sounds. Gregg based the curved forms of his alphabet on the parts of an ellipse instead of the circle. This gives Gregg shorthand a flowing cursive form of writing like longhand. Gregg has no shaded outlines. It does not use position and may be written on unruled paper.The earliest recorded instance of shorthand being used is the system used by the historian Xenophon to write the memoirs of Socrates. The art of shorthand died out in the middle Ages because of its imagined associations with witchcraft.

Samuel Pepys was an English naval administrator and diarist. His Diary (1660 - 69) is a unique record of the daily life of the period, the historical events of the Restoration, the manners and scandals of the court, naval administration, and Pepys's own interests, weaknesses, and intimate feelings. Written in shorthand, it was not deciphered until 1825.Thus these codes used do simplify the work of man and do help him to save both time and energy. Also as only a trained person could decode it the message would be safe from the hands of superfluous people who might otherwise tamper and distort the message.

A unique system like shorthand hence finds many uses in the routine jobs of the office. It can also be used to make confidential notes which the writer would not want to reveal to each and every reader. Who knows might be you could even write your diary in shorthand to keep the things written a mystery like Pepys did!