Give India, Give!

The book stimulated my brain for a while though! And you will not believe it, more than 5 companies are philanthropic. Education, microfinance, schools, advanced learning and giving! Yes, giving. There is a company called Give India which provides a platform for people to donate money to NGOs working in different areas. You really feel for this guy, I mean after graduating from IIMA, 20 years on, he has not amassed any wealth. The service charges levied by the company make sure it keeps running.

You have to give it to the founder of this company or rather institution, Venkat Raman (accolades from whatever!). He has worked hard all his life, so that he could make a difference in other people’s lives. You feel motivated while reading his story and the feeling for doing something yourself creeps in.

I went to the website and made a pledge myself. Believe me, I felt a lot better thinking that I am making a difference to some one else, even if it is a tiny bit, but the difference will be there.

If you want information about the company and what it does and the way it keeps all its services transparent and a lot of other stuff, please visit the below link.

http://www.giveindia.org/t-abtus_mission.aspx

It may be a small amount for us, 100 bucks goes for a cup of coffee in CCD or a couple of hundred for a movie, we don’t mind. So a hundred every month so that a kid somewhere can eat everyday should be worth spending.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish!

You got to read this one, it’s the stories of 25 IIM grads who quit lucrative jobs to do something of their own. The stories are amazing and showcase the triumph of passion and grit and the courage to hang in there against all odds (including government), but most of all it highlights the belief that they had in their ideas. You will observe throughout the stories the mavericks had taken a leap of faith at some point or the other and put everything on the line.

No wonder you get bit by the entrepreneurial bug and with each finishing story a new idea flashes in your head (and I mean literally, because by the next chapter is starting and a new idea is taking shape). And you try to picture yourself as an entrepreneur, making presentations, talking to big people and then making big money. I was half way through the book and asked Santosh if he had read the book, “boss, bahut kharab book hai”

what??

Then he gave me a little perspective J, first of all you have to have an idea - I can have ideas. Then you have to sell that idea to big people to get some money to start the business - well a little marketing wont harm in the longer run too. Then, these guys had to slog it out for the next 6-8 years of their lives continuously and even after that, most of the companies are, well, not big! Plus, you need to keep working hard to keep the company going. And we are talking IIM A grads here, the best management thing!

Hmm, I thought out loud, 6-8 years of very hard labour, and then a lifetime of moderately hard labour does not seem like my cup of tea, and we both agreed “Kharab book hai!”

But it does make a good reading though, especially if you feel bored on a hour long train journey everyday!

Local Call..

An American decided to write a book about famous churches around
the world.

So he bought a plane ticket and took a trip to china.

On his first day he was inside a church taking photographs when he
noticed a golden telephone mounted on the wall with a sign that
read "$10,000 per call".

The American, being intrigued, asked a priest who was strolling by
what the telephone was used for.

The priest replied that it was a direct line to heaven and that
for $10,000 you could talk to God.

The American thanked the priest and went along his way.

Next stop was in japan. There, at a very large
cathedral, he saw the same golden telephone with the same sign
under it.

He wondered if this was the same kind of telephone he saw in china
and he asked a nearby nun what its purpose was.

She told him that it was a direct line to heaven and that for
$10,000 he could talk to God.

"O.K., thank you," said the American.

He then traveled to pakistan, srilanka, russia, Germany and
France.

In every church he saw the same golden telephone
with the same "$10,000 per call" sign under it.

The American, upon leaving Vermont decided to travel to up to
India to see if Indians had the same phone.

He arrived in India, and again, in the first church he entered,
there was the same golden telephone, but this time the sign under
it read "One Rupee per call."

The American was surprised so he asked the priest about the sign.
"Father, I've traveled all over World and I've seen this same
golden telephone in many churches. I'm told that it is a direct
line to Heaven, but in the US the price was $10,000 per call.

Why is it so cheap here?"

The priest smiled and answered, "You're in India now, son - it's a
local call".

The Rice Caravan..

This one was told to me by my Dad when I was a kid and didnt understand its importance back then, its an eye opener with a bit of philosophy. Here goes....

Once Badshah Akbar was standing on his balcony with his Queen and the queen's brother. And the queen was nagging the king to make her brother (yeah right!) a minister in place of Birbal, the king all the while was listening to Tansen singing from a distance (huh??). But the queen kept on arguing about how good her brother was, till the point the king got fed up and said,

"Ok, but I will test him with Birbal first"

To which the queen agreed joyfully.

Just then a caravan was passing through the palace roads, the king saw it and was curious, he called the queens bro and asked him to check out where the caravan was headed.

The bro ran down and came back after 10 mins and told the king that the caravan was leaving the city and was headed west.

The king was keen on why they were leaving the city, so he asked the queens bro to check out why they were leaving the city.

The man again ran down and came back after 20 mins. He reported to the king that the caravan was selling rice in the city and did not get a proper response here and were therefore leaving the city for another market.

The king again asked him to check out the quality of rice they had got.

Now the queen's bro looked at the queen appealing as the Caravan had gone far out of his reach.

The king smiled at this. Just then Birbal happened to be there.

The king showed him the caravan at a distance and asked him to check it out. Birbal went down and came back after 2 hrs.

He reported to the king that the caravan was in the city selling rice and they did not get a proper response from the market here and were leaving the city for another market. He checked the quality of their rice and found it to be of the highest quality at a reasonable price and hence he brought it for the Royal palace. He had aslo asked them to return the next year with the same quality of rice.

The king was left with no further questions to ask.

The Quota Story!

THE OLD VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long building his
houseand laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays
the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The
grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MODERN VERSION...
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his
house and laying up supplies for the winter.The grasshopper thinks the
ant's a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and
demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed
while others are cold and starving.

BBC, CNN, EURO-NEWS, NDTV, FOX NEWS show up to provide pictures of the
shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable
home with a table filled with food.
The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this
poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house.
Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticizes the Government for
notupholding the fundamental rights of the grasshopper.
The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the
grasshopper.
Opposition MP's stage a walkout.Left parties call for "Bharat Bandh" in
West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.

Arundhati Roy calls it "a triumph of justic
Koffi Annan invites the grasshopper to address the UN General
Assembly...

Socrates

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.


An honest man is always a child.

As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.

Be as you wish to seem.

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll
become a philosopher.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the
enemy.

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.
All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.

Ed TV

I just watched Ed TV on tv and well what can I say, I liked it.
Its about a guy who is covered on national TV 24 hrs a day and all that goes on in his life is shown on tv.

very novel idea me thinks. Imagine there are cameras all around you (4 to be precise) and they show everything you do (well except in the bathroom) on TV. Whatever you talk, you do, whoever you meet gets to be on TV and wholloa!!! you are famous!

The guy in the movie, who is ED by the way, also likes this at first as he is a ordinary man and he likes the idea of being famous with lot of money on Ads, but then as the TV just refuses to go away from his personal life things start to get interesting.

The movie is stuffed up with too many twists for a normal person's life, but I liked the idea of it and it entertains too.

So if you want to watch it, its on ZEE Studio or HBO, more recently on ZEE studio..

24 hrs on TV, hmmmmmmmmm.....

The Bicentenial Man.

I will start off with a movie which I saw very recently on TV, The Bicentenial Man, hats off to the one that has made this this.. no words.

One of a kind storyline, one of a kind performer.. Robin Williams, and low budget. The movie just reaffirms that big budge is really not necessary to make good movies.

The movie revolves around Robin who is a robot brought home by a family and who lives with it for 200 years until he is transformed into a human, yes you got that right. Its the journey of a robot converting into a human being having everything that a human has life, brain, feelings and even sense pleasures.

The robot just keeps on growing with every new day and keeps on learning something new that he already knew. He lives on and on until love and then the transformation begins and this is where you will have to watch the movie to feel it.

I felt it and was happy I watched the movie!

Navachi Gojiri..

After a long day at the office where you have had few things going your way and have done your day's worth of battling everyone else, all you need is good food going in and anything that is pleasant (and I mean anything), and then I heard this little girl sing a song, I had never heard before, but it sounded classic! I mean, I am a decent fan of Marathi music and had a collection of Lataji's and Ashaji's songs, but this song I had never heard before!

The little girl had a mischevious smile on her face and it betrayed the true emotions of the lyrics and the music that added just the required
amount of spice. I heard the song and couldnt get Sharayu Date's voice out of my head and the song drove me crazy. So crazy that I forgot what the lyrics were and couldnt search it on the net. Lucky me, I heard it today again and made a mental note to get the key words in the lyrics and lo and behold..Navachi Gojiri.. just flow away in the masti of this song and dance in the middle of the night.

Heres the link to the original song..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNRL_mD-bpc

And heres the one from Sharayu Date http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD7oibyTl_s&feature=related