Musings that Amuse Me.....

For most of us - I could confidently say all of us, our first idols are our parents. If you had siblings, the eldest is probably the next idol. As we grow like birds and learn to flap wings, our idols stretch out of the nest. Someone makes a mark.... and stays the same. I am not sure how many recollect your first idol outside your family For someone with a memory like mine, no effort is needed. Actress Srividhya won my admiration. In my own childish innocence, I thought she was actually sitting behind the screen and singing the song 'Ezhu Swarangalukkul ethanai paadal' in the opening scene of the movie Apoorva Ragangal[1975]. What an impact !! I was captivated by everything from the first scene. The playback singer of that song [Vani Jayaram ] would become my favourite singer and every letter of the song would stay in my memory for ever !! Till date, I wonder whether it was Vani or Vidya who fascinated me first !! This is infact, the oldest episode I can ever recollect in my li...

Last week, I wound up my residence in Philadelphia and moved to San Francisco. Some golden truths when we wind up a house and move are 1. The packing never ends. Things keep appearing out of the shelves and corners. The house is at its most messy phase. The effort tires you out. 2. Once you reach your new place, the object you want first is always at the bottom and the box containing it is always opened last. 3. The most important things are lost during the move, never to be found again. Of course, I m inflating it, but the experience is not very different for anyone I knew. With more consulting jobs and companies kicking their employees like soccer ball these days, the packers and movers are doing good business. From a luxury, it has matured as an industry and is affordable to many these days. The fundamental question - why relocate at all ? We get tons of reasons - more satisfying job, more spacious house, own house, better quality schools for kids...many of them. The common threa...

How wonderful are those moments when we give our parents something to be thrilled about ? My Mom and Dad filled my school days with so many thrills and sweet things. How wonderful to recollect them !! I still remember my Dad taking me to his office to teach me how to use the 'Telephone'. Now, in 1981, not every house had a phone. It looked and sounded like a monster. We did not have one - still, my dad took me to his office on a sunday afternoon just to teach me how to talk on the phone. I was thrilled when I heard his voice in that instrument " Hello, Yaar Pesaradhu ? Dhas a ? " My Mom would wait for me at the spot where my school van would drop me - The hitch was that my school van had no predictable time. Yet, she was there, just to make me smile - make me feel thrilled !! I was an awfully bad communicator, but my joy would express itself in screaming sounds and words that had no meaning in any language. These are just couple of examples. They have made m...

In the epic Mahabharath, often considered as the 'Fifth Veda', the story of Bheeshma is a fascinating one. Prince Devavratha, born to King Santanu and Ganga, wanted his Dad to be happy. That is like any other son. What was not like any other son is this - When his father, King Santanu, was mesmerized by the beauty of Satyavati, a fisherman s daughter and wanted to marry her , Satyavati's father, out of his own insecurity, wanted an assurance that the Child born to Santanu and Satyavati should be the King and not Devavratha. No Father would be unfair to his son and Santanu was no different. He refused the deal, but could not forget Satyavati. Moved by his Father s plight, Devavratha approached the Fisherman and assured him that he would never claim the throne. The Fisherman, aware of Devavratha s unparalleled Archery skills, was still insecure as Devavratha s children could overpower his child. Then came the next promise - Devavratha promised to never get intimate with any...

" Love me when I least deserve it , because that is when I really need it " What a true, powerful quote !! A friend of mine [ Nianaaz ] posted this in Facebook and I was speechless for a couple of seconds when I read it. How wonderfully expressed !! The quote set me thinking so much and so deep !! When we truly love someone, we really do not care if the recepient 'deserves' it. We just give it away, simply because we connect with the infinite at that moment - what is ' infinite ? ' - we give away, yet we do not feel any less - In fact we feel ' more' . When we are truly in love, we realize that love is something that doesn t become less because we gave it away. In fact, we become 'more loving' by giving it away. Think about mom !! what did we do as babies, to deserve mom s love ? we got it anyway and we basked in it. Life was smile, baby talk, love and fun !! 'Deserving' was perhaps the last thing the mother and baby had in ...

Almost all my friends and colleagues agree with each other on this one - Dash is a nice guy. Now what exactly does that mean ? I have heard nice guys finish last. I have not always finished last , but I am one of the best examples of Martina Navratilova s famous quote ' Nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with a lot of talent '. That is very unlike me !! Yes, I never said anything nice about myself so far , except cracking some jokes about myself. So, if you are one of the members of the endangered species who reads my blog, you do deserve to know more of myself - I probably killed you by not opening up at all and bottling up my thoughts. So here it goes... 1. I am driven a lot by fear. It is an emotion that overwhelms me all the time. I fear change, I fear new people, new work, anything new. I fear hurting or displeasing others. I fear disagreeing with anyone. I have learnt to handle fear much better of late, but my fear for everything has stopped me from achieving...

Somehow, the word ' Relationship' sounded too personal for the Corporate world. So much so that the Business community used the word 'Professional Networking' to refer to a business relationship. The presence of money brings in a dimension to 'professional networking' that expects us to keep emotions away and evaluate purely in terms of priorities - Revenues, costs, taxes and profit. But, similar to a 'relationship' , professional networking is also built with a lot of effort,keeping commitments and building credibility . Like personal relationship, professional credibility takes years to build and minutes to destroy. However, the rewards of building it are phenomenal. My Boss [Raj Neravati] demonstrated me the power of building a professional relationship last week when we were working on a bid. I should say it was stunning for me to realize that the 'system', 'process' and all the other jargons that denote a pack of humans at work rewar...